
Class _i.kJ^L£_ 

Book -_L^5_ 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 

SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 

ALLIED WITH SCIENCE 



A CATECHISM FOR 
PARENTS AND TEACHERS 



BY 

Sir Oliver Lodge 

Principal of the University of Birmingham 

AUTHOR OF 

" MODERN VIEWS ON MATTER " 

"SOME SOCIAL REFORMS" 

" LIFE AND MATTER " 

ETC., ETC. 



'Gloriam quaesivit scientiartim % 
invenit Dei.'* 



HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

MCMVII 



fi-lti 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 

PER 27 ?90r 

^Copyrisrht Entry 



L 



CLASS A XXc M No, 
COPY 8/ 



Copyright, 1907, by Harper & Brothers. 

All rights reserved. 
Published March, 1907. 

Printed in U. S. of America* 



PREFACE 

Every one who has to do with children at the 
present day, directly or indirectly, must in some 
form or another have felt the difficulty of instruct- 
ing them in the details of religious faith, without 
leaving them open to the assaults of doubt here- 
after, when they encounter the results of scientific 
inquiry. 

Sometimes the old truths and the new truths 
seem to conflict; and though every one must be 
aware that such internecine warfare between 
truths can be an appearance only, the reconcilia- 
tion is not easily perceived : nor is the task simpli- 
fied by the hostile attitude adopted towards each 
other by some of the upholders of orthodox Chris- 
tianity. * 

It is sometimes said to be impossible for a 
teacher to educate a class subject to compulsory 
attendance, in a spirit of wealth, peace, and Godli- 
ness, without infringing the legitimate demands of 
somebody; but the difficulty is caused chiefly by 
sectarian animosity, which may take a variety of 
forms. 

These religious and educational disputes would 



iv THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 

be of small consequence, and might even be stim- 
ulating to thought and fervor, were it not that one 
danger is imminent: — a danger lest the nation, in 
despair of a happier settlement, should consent to 
a system of compulsory secularism; and forbid, in 
the public part of the curriculum of elementary 
schools, not only any form of worship, but any 
mention of a Supreme Being, and any quotation 
from the literature left us by the Saints, Apostles, 
Prophets, of all ages. 

If so ghastly a negation is brought about by the 
warfare of Denominations it will be a most lam- 
entable result. 

Meanwhile, in the hope and belief that the great 
bulk of the teachers of this country are eager and 
anxious to do their duty, and lead the children 
committed to their care along the ways of right- 
eousness,— being deterred therefrom in some cases 
only by the difficulty of following out their ideals 
amid the turmoil of voices, and in other cases by 
their uncertainty of how far the "old paths" can 
still be pursued in the light of modern knowledge, 
— I have attempted the task of formulating the 
fundamentals, or substance, 1 of religious faith in 
terms of Divine Immanence, 2 in such a way as to 



1 " By Substance I understand that which exists in and by 
itself" (Spinoza). 

2 We may say much, yet not attain; and the sum of our 
words is, He is all (Ecclesiasticus xliii. 27). 



PREFACE v 

assimilate sufficiently all the results of existing 
knowledge, and still to be in harmony with the 
teachings of the poets and inspired writers of all 
ages. The statement is intended to deny nothing 
which can reasonably be held by any specific De- 
nomination, and it seeks to affirm nothing but what 
is consistent with universal Christian experience. 
Our knowledge of the Christian religion is ad- 
mittedly derived from information verbally com- 
municated, and from documents; and, in the 
interpretation of these sources, mistakes have been 
made. At one time, not long ago, it was the duty 
of serious students of all kinds to point out some 
of these mistakes, wherever they ran counter to 
sense and knowledge. That cleaning and sweet- 
ening work has been done vigorously, and done 
well: at the present time comparatively little 
sweeping remains to be done, save in holes and 
corners: most of the lost simplicity has now been 
found. A positive or constructive statement of 
religious doctrine, not indeed deduced from pres- 
ent knowledge, but in harmony with all that bears 
upon the subject, is now more useful. Such a 
statement might be called "New Light on Old 
Paths"; for the "old paths" remain, and are more 
brightly illuminated than ever: even the old Gen- 
esis story of man's early experience shines out as 
a brilliant inspiration. Truth always grows in 
light and beauty the more it is uncovered. 



vi THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 

There are still people who endeavor to deny 
or disbelieve the discoveries of science. They are 
setting themselves athwart the stream, and trying 
to stop its advance; — they only succeed in stopping 
their own. They are good people, but unwise, and, 
moreover, untrustful. If they will let go their 
anchorage, and sail on in a spirit of fearless faith, 
they will find an abundant reward, by attaining a 
deeper insight into the Divine Nature, and a wider 
and brighter outlook over the destiny of man. 



t 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

Preface — On Religious Teaching ... iii 
Introduction — A Plea for Sympathy and 

Breadth i 

I. The Ascent of Man 8 

II. The Development of Conscience .... 22 

III. Character and Will 26 

IV. Duty and Service 34 

V. Goodness and Beauty and God .... 38 

VI. Man a Part of the Universe 44 

VII. The Nature of Evil 48 

VIII. The Meaning of Sin 54 

IX. The Development of Life 60 

X. Cosmic Intelligence 66 

XI. Immanence 70 

XII. Higher Faculties, or Soul and Spirit . . 82 

XIII. The Reality of Grace and of Incarnation 90 

XIV. The Truth of Inspiration 98 

XV. A Creed 102 

XVI. The Life Eternal 112 

XVII. The Communion of Saints 120 

XVIII. Prayer 124 

XIX. The Lord's Prayer 128 

XX. The Kingdom of Heaven 130 

Appendix. The Clauses Repeated . . . 136 



viii THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 



REFERENCES TO QUOTATIONS 



Old paths" 

Hear no yelp" . 

Then welcome" . 

We fall to rise" 

Nor shall I deem" 

If my body" 

Our wills" 

The old order" . 

Lilies that fester" 

All tended" 

He hath shewed thee" 

The best is yet to be" 

My son, the world" . 

There shall never be" 

No ill no good" 

All we have willed" . 

Where dwells enjoyment" 

God tastes an infinite" 

iravra pet nai oi>d€v fxevei," 

(Everything flows and nothing 

The hills are shadows" 

rravra ir\r]pY} deiiov " 

(All things are full of gods.) 

Earth's crammed" 

Our birth" 

We are such stuff" 

Climb the mount" 

That none but Gods" 

Flash of the will" 

All through my keys" 

'Tis the sublime" 

Enough that he heard it 

A sun but dimly seen" 

But that one ripple" . 

Signs of his coming" . 

Then stirs the feeling" 

h ^vxh ftp o^y fj.efj.iKT at ' 

(Spirit permeates the whole.) 

Whose dwelling" 

Their prejudice" 

'And we the poor earth's' 



Jer. vi. 1 6 

Tennyson, 

Browning, 

Browning, 

Browning, 

Tennyson, 

Tennyson, 

Tennyson, 



"By an Evolutionist.' 
"Rabbi Ben Ezra." 
" Asolando." 
"Paracelsus." 
"By an Evolutionist 
"In Memoriam." 
"Idylls." 

Shakespeare, Sonnet 94. 

Browning, "Paracelsus." 

Micah vi. 8. 

"Rabbi Ben Ezra." 
"Ancient Sage." 
"Abt Vogler." 
"Ancient Sage." 
"Abt Vogler." 
"Paracelsus." 
"Paracelsus." 



Browning, 
Tennyson, 
Browning, 
Tennyson, 
Browning, 
Browning, 
Browning, 
Heraclitus 
abides.) 
Tennyson, 



"In Memoriam. 1 



Thales, quoted by Aristotle. 

Mrs. Browning, "Aurora Leigh." 
Wordsworth , ' ' Immortality. ' ' 
Shakespeare, "Tempest." 
Tennyson, "Ancient Sage." 
Tennyson, "By an Evolutionist.' 
Browning, "Abt Vogler." 
Browning, "Abt Vogler." 
Coleridge, "Religious Musings." 
Browning, "Abt Vogler." 
Tennyson, "Akbar's Dream." 
Tennyson, "Ancient Sage." 
W. Morris, "Love is enough." 
Byron, "Childe Harold." 
Aristotle, "De Anima" 

Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey." 
Browning, ' ' Paracelsus. ' ' 
Tennyson, "Ancient Sage." 



THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 



INTRODUCTION 

There is a growing conception of religion which 
regards it not as a thing for special hours or special 
days, but as a reality permeating the whole of life. 
The old attempt to partition off a region where 
Divine action is appropriate, from another region 
in which such action would be out of place — the 
old superstition that God does one thing and not 
another, that He speaks more directly through the 
thunder of catastrophe or the mystery of miracle 
than through thequiet voice of ordinary existence 
— all this is beginning to show signs of expiring in 
the light of a coming day. 

Those to whom such a change is welcome regard 
it as of the utmost importance that this incipient 
recognition of a Deity immanent in History and in 
all the processes of Nature shall be guided and 
elevated and made secure. Ancient formularies 
must be reconsidered and remodelled if they are 
to continue to express eternal verities in language 
corresponding to the enlarged acquaintance with 
natural knowledge now possessed by humanity. 

Nevertheless the attempt to draw up anything of 



4 THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 

the nature of a creed or catechism, unhallowed by 
centuries of emotion and aspiration, is singularly 
difficult; and to obtain general acceptance for such 
a production may be impossible. 

Every Denomination is likely to prefer its own 
creed or formula, especially if it has the aroma of 
antiquity upon it — an aroma of high value for 
religious purposes and more easily destroyed than 
replaced. No carefully drawn statement can be 
expected to go far enough to satisfy religious en- 
thusiasts: it is not possible to satisfy both scien- 
tific and distinctively denominational requirements. 
All this might be admitted, and yet it may be pos- 
sible to lay a sound foundation such as can stand 
scientific scrutiny and reasonable rationalistic at- 
tack — a foundation which may serve as a basis for 
more specific edification among those who are 
capable of sustaining a loftier structure. 

Even though not yet fully attainable, it is per- 
missible to hope for more union than exists at 
present among professing Christians, and among 
the branches of the Christian Church. With some 
excellent people the differences and distinguishing 
marks loom out as of special importance; but from 
these I can hardly claim attention. I must speak 
to those who try to seize points of agreement, and 
who long for the time when all Christian workers 
may be united in effort and friendliness and co- 
operation, though not in all details of doctrine. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

On the practical side, a concurrence of effort for 
the amelioration and spiritualization of human life, 
in the light of a common gospel and a common 
hope, is not impossible; and on the theoretical 
side, in spite of legitimate difference of belief on 
difficult and infinite problems, there must be a 
mass of fundamental material on which a great 
majority are really agreed. 

But a foundation is not to be mistaken for 
superstructure: a full-fledged and developed re- 
ligion needs a great deal more than foundation — 
there must be a building too. The warmth and 
vitality imparted by strong religious conviction is 
a matter of common observation, and is a force 
of great magnitude; but it is a personal and living 
thing, it cannot be embodied in a formula or taught 
in a class. Here lies the proper field of work of 
the Churches. What can be taught in a school is 
the fundamental substratum underlying all such 
developments and personal aspirations; and it can 
be dealt with on a basis of historical and scientific 
fact, interpreted and enlarged by the perceptions 
and experiences of mankind. 

A creed or catechism should not be regarded as 
something superhuman, infallible, and immutable; 
it should be considered to be what it really is — a 
careful statement of what, in the best light of the 
time, can be regarded as true and important about 
matters partially beyond the range of scientific 



6 THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH 

knowledge: it must always reach farther into the 
unknown than science has yet explored. 

An element of mystery and difficulty is not in- 
appropriate in a creed, although it may be primarily 
intended for comprehension by children. Bare 
bald simplicity of statement, concerning things 
keenly felt but imperfectly known, cannot be per- 
fectly accurate; and yet every effort should be 
made to combine accuracy and simplicity to the 
utmost. Every word should be carefully weighed 
and accurately used: mere conventional terminol- 
ogy should be eschewed. A sentence stored in the 
memory may evolve different significations at dif- 
ferent periods of life, and at no one period need it 
be completely intelligible or commonplace. The 
ideal creed should be profound rather than ex- 
plicit, and yet should convey some sort of meaning 
even to the simplest and most ignorant. Its terms, 
therefore, should not be technical, though for full 
comprehension they would have to be understood 
in a technical or even a recondite sense. 

To make a statement of this kind useful, it is 
necessary to accompany each clause with some 
indication of the supplementary teaching neces- 
sary to make it assimilable: and such hints should 
be adapted not only to professed teachers, but to 
parents and all who have to do directly or indi- 
rectly with the education of children. It is my 
hope that the following clauses and explanations 



INTRODUCTION 7 

may be of some use also to the many who expe- 
rience some difficulty in recognizing the old land- 
marks amid the rising flood of criticism, and who 
at one time or another have felt shaken in their 
religious faith. Some of them are sure to have 
attained emancipation and conviction for them- 
selves, but in so far as their own insight has led 
them in the general direction indicated by what 
follows, these will not be the last to welcome an 
explicit statement, even though in several places 
they may wish to modify and amend it. They 
will recognize that there is an advantage, for some 
purposes, in throwing old and over-familiar for- 
mulae into new modes of expression; and that a 
variety in mode of formulation does not necessarily 
indicate a lack of appreciation of the loftiest truths 
yet vouchsafed to humanity. 

With these preliminary remarks I now submit a 
catechism, whereof the clauses are intended to be 
consistent with the teachings of Science in its 
widest sense, as well as with those of Literature 
and Philosophy, and to lead up to the substance 
or substratum of a religious creed. 



THE ASCENT OF MAN 

V 

Q. What are you ? 

A. I am a being alive and conscious upon this 
earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by 
gradual processes from lower forms of animal life, 
and with struggle and suffering became man. 



ANCESTRY 9 

CLAUSE I 

This answer does not pretend to exhaust the 
nature of man; another aspect is dealt with in 
Clause XII. It is usual to impart the latter mode 
of statement first; but premature dwelling on the 
more mystical aspect of human nature, with igno- 
rance or neglect of the biological facts actually 
ascertained concerning it, only gives rise to troubled 
thought in the future when the material facts be- 
come known — often in crude or garbled form — and 
leads to scepticism. 

The clause as it stands is a large and compre- 
hensive statement, that will need much time for 
its elucidation and adequate comprehension. Its 
separate terms may be considered thus: — 

Earth. — Children can gradually be assisted to 
realize the earth as an enormous globe of matter, 
with vast continents and oceans on its surface and 
with a clinging atmosphere, the whole moving very 
rapidly (nineteen miles each second) through space, 
and constituting one of a number of other planets 
all circulating round the sun. They may also be 
led to realize that from the distance of a million 
miles it would appear as an object in the sky rather 
like the moon; that from a greater distance it 
would look like any of the other planets; while 
from a vastly greater distance neither it nor any 
other planet is large or luminous enough to be 



io ASCENT OF MAN 

visible — nothing but the sun would then be seen, 
looking like a star. It is occasionally helpful to 
realize that the earth, with all its imperfections, 
is one of the heavenly bodies. 

Being. — The mystery of existence may be lightly 
touched upon. The fact that anything whatever — 
even a stone — exists, raises unanswerable questions 
of whence and why. It is instructive to think of 
some rocks as agglomerations of sand, and of sand 
as water-worn fragments of previous rock; be- 
cause, even here, there arises a sense of infinitude. 

Alive. — The nature of life and, consequently, 
of death is unknown, but life is associated with 
rapid chemical changes in complex molecules, and 
is characterized by the powers or faculties of as- 
similation, growth, and reproduction. It is a prop- 
erty we share with all animals and also with plants. 
Children should not be told this in bald fashion, 
but by judicious questioning should be led to per- 
ceive the essence of it for themselves. Soon after 
they realize what is meant by life, some of them 
will perceive that it has an enormous range of 
application, and will think of flowers as possessing 
it also: being subject like all living things to 
disease and death. 

What plants do not possess is the specifically 
animal power of purposed locomotion, of hunting 
for food and comfort, with its associated protective 
penalty of pain. 



ANCESTRY n 

Conscious. — Here we come to something spe- 
cially distinctive of higher animal life. Probably 
it makes its incipient appearance low down in the 
scale, in vague feelings of pain or discomfort, and 
of pleasure; though it is not likely that worms are 
as conscious as they appear to us to be. In its 
higher grades consciousness means awareness of 
the world and of ourselves, a discrimination be- 
tween the self and the external world — "self-con- 
sciousness" in its proper signification: an immense 
subject that can only be hinted at to children. 
They can, however, be taught to have some appre- 
ciation of the senses, or channels, whereby our 
experience of external nature is gained; and to 
perceive that the way in which we apprehend the 
universe is closely conditioned by the particular 
sense-organs which in the struggle for existence 
have been evolved by all the higher kinds of animal 
life, — organs which we men are now beginning to 
put to the unfamiliar and novel use of scientific 
investigation and cosmic interpretation. What 
wonder if we make mistakes, and are narrow and 
limited in our outlook! 

Digression on the Senses 

Our fundamental interpretative sense is that of 
touch — the muscular sense generally. Through it 
we become aware of space, of time, and of matter. 



12 ASCENT OF MAN 

The experience of space arises from free motion, 
especially locomotion; speed is a direct sensation; 
and time is the other factor of speed. Time is 
measured by any uniformly moving body — that is, 
by space and speed together. Muscular action im- 
peded, the sense of force or resistance, is another 
primary sensation; and by inference from this 
arises our notion of " matter," which is sometimes 
spoken of as a permanent possibility of sensation. 
Hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, 
are all inferences from varieties of touch. Another 
sense allied to touch is that of temperature, whereby 
we obtain primitive ideas concerning heat. Then 
there are the chemical senses of taste and smell; 
and lastly, the two senses which enable us to draw 
inferences respecting things at a distance. These 
two attract special attention; for the information 
which they convey, though less fundamental than 
that given by the muscular sense, is of the highest 
interest and enjoyment. 

The ear is an instrument for the appreciation 
of aerial vibrations, or ripples in the air. They 
may give us a sense of harmony; and in any case 
they enable us to infer something concerning the vi- 
brating source which generated them, so that we can 
utilize them, by a prearranged code, for purposes 
of intelligent communication with each other — a 
process of the utmost importance, to which we have 
grown so accustomed that its wonder is masked. 



ANCESTRY 13 

The eye is an instrument for appreciating ripples 
in the ether. These are generated by violently 
revolving electric charges associated with each atom 
of matter, and are delayed, stopped, and reflected 
in various ways, by other matter which they en- 
counter in their swift passage through the ethereal 
medium. 

From long practice and inherited instinct we are 
able, from the small fraction of these ripples which 
enter our eyes, to make inferences regarding the 
obstructive objects from which they have been 
shimmered and scattered. It is like inferring the 
ships and boats and obstacles in a harbor from the 
pattern of the reflected ripples which cross each 
other on the surface of the water. 

The precision and clearness with which we can 
thus gain knowledge concerning things beyond our 
reach, and the extraordinary amount of informa- 
tion that can be thus conveyed, are nothing short 
of miraculous: though, again, we are liable to 
treat sight as an every-day and commonplace fac- 
ulty. We are not, however, directly conscious of 
the ripples, though they are the whole exciting 
cause of the sensation; our real consciousness and 
perception are of the objects which have invested 
the ripples with their peculiarities, have imprinted 
upon them certain characteristics, and made them 
what they are. The eye is able to analyze all this, 
as the ear analyzes the tones of an orchestra. 



14 ASCENT OF MAN 

Ancestors. — In the first instance human ances- 
tors may be considered, and a family tree drawn 
for any one child; from which he will learn how 
large a number of persons combine to form his 
ancestry. The tree can also represent the converg- 
ing effect of inter-marriages, so that ultimate de- 
scent from a common ancestor is not an impossi- 
bility, if the facts of biology and ethnology point in 
that direction — as it appears they do. The proba- 
ble though remote relationship existing between all 
the branches of the human family may be suggested 
by an inverted tree descending from some remotest 
ancestor: for whom Noah is as good a name as any 
other. 

Rose. — The doctrine of the ascent of man may 
be found in some cases to conflict with early re- 
ligious teaching. If so, offence and iconoclasm 
should be carefully avoided; and if the teacher 
feels that he can conscientiously draw a distinction, 
between the persistent vital or spiritual essence of 
man, and the temporary material vehicle which dis- 
plays his individual existence amid terrestrial sur- 
roundings, he may with advantage do so. The 
second or higher aspect of the origin of man is dealt 
with in Clause XII. The history and origin of the 
spiritual part of man is unknown, and can only be 
rightly spoken of in terms of mysticism and poetry: 
the history of the bodily and much of the mental 
part is studied in the biological facts of evolution. 



ANCESTRY 15 

The doctrine of the ascent of man, properly 
regarded, is a doctrine of much hope and comfort. 
Truly it is an unusual item in a child's creed; but 
it is, I think, a helpful item: it explains much that 
would otherwise be dark, and it instils hope for the 
future. For in the light of an evolution doctrine 
we can readily admit — (1) that low and savage 
tendencies are naturally to be expected at certain 
stages, for an evanescent moment; and (2) that 
having progressed thus far, we may anticipate fur- 
ther — perhaps unlimited — advance for mankind. 

The fact that each individual organism hastily 
runs through, or reduplicates, a main part of the 
series of stages in the life-history of its race, is a 
fact of special interest and significance; notably in 
connection with the trials and temptations of hu- 
man beings during their effort to cleanse away the 
traces of animal nature. The severity of the con- 
test is already lessening, and both the individual 
and the race may look forward to a time when the 
struggles and failures are nearly over, when the 
unruliness of passion is curbed, when at length we 

". . . hear no yelp of the beast, and the man is quiet at 
last 
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse 
of a height that is higher." 

Gradual Processes. — The slowness and pre- 
cariousness of evolution may be indicated; and the 



\6 ASCENT OF MAN 

possibility of descent or degeneration, as well as of 
ascent and development, must be insisted on. A 
genealogical tree can be drawn laterally, to illus- 
trate the origin of any set of animals — both those 
risen and those fallen in the scale — from some pos- 
sibly hypothetical common ancestor. The dog on 
the one hand, and the wolf or jackal on the other, 
may serve as easy examples of ascent and descent 
respectively, and of relationship between higher and 
lower species, or even genera, without direct or obvi- 
ous connection. The horse and the bear may serve 
as examples of distant relationship; birds and rep- 
tiles as another; and we may point out that at each 
stage of inheritance some of the progeny may ascend 
a little in the scale, and some descend a little. 

Presently the sponge of time may wipe out the 
common ancestry at the root of the lateral tree, and 
nothing be left but some of its ascending and some 
of its descending branches, — all suited to their en- 
vironment and so continuing to live and flourish, 
each in its own way; but so apparently different, 
that relationship between them is a matter of infer- 
ence, and is sometimes difficult to believe in. The 
example of the caterpillar and butterfly, however, 
of the tadpole and the frog, etc., can be used to 
remove incredulity at extraordinary and instructive 
transmutations — transmutations which in the indi- 
vidual represent rapidly some analogous move- 
ments of racial development in the history of the 



ANCESTRY 17 

distant past. The degradation of certain free- 
swimming animals, such as ascidians, which in 
old age become rooted or sessile like plants, can 
be pointed to as typical, and, indeed, a true rep- 
resentation of what has gone on in a race also, 
during long periods of time. The rapid pas- 
sage of the embryo through its ancestral chain 
of development should be known, at any rate 
to the teacher; and in general the greater the 
teacher's acquaintance with natural history, the 
more living and interesting will be the series of 
lessons that can occasionally be given on this part 
of the clause. 

The popular misconception concerning the bio- 
logical origin of man, that he is descended from 
monkeys like those of the present day, is a trivial 
garbling of the truth. The elevated and the de- 
graded branches of a family can both trace their 
descent from a parent stock; and though the dis- 
tant common ancestor may now be lost in obscu- 
rity, there is certainly in this sense a blood relation- 
ship between the quadrumana and the bimana: a 
relationship which is recognized and is practically 
useful in the investigations of experimental pa- 
thology. 

Lower Forms of Animal Life.— The existence 
of single cells and other low microscopic forms (like 
amoebae), and the analysis or dissection of a more 
complex structure (say rhubarb) into the cells of 



18 ASCENT OF MAN 

which it is in a sense composed, together with 
some indication of the vital processes occurring in 
similar but isolated cells (such as yeast or proto- 
coccus) which lead us to consider them as possess- 
ing life — of a form so fundamental that there is in 
some cases no clear discrimination between animal 
and vegetable — may be spoken of and exhibited in 
the microscope. 

From a not very different-looking minute ger- 
minal vesicle, or nucleus of a cell, the chick is 
developed. 

The lower forms of animal life, spoken of in the 
clause as ancestral, may be understood to go back 
to forms even as low as these, — indeed, to the low- 
est' and minutest forms which in dim and distant 
ages can have possessed any of the incipient char- 
acteristics of life a tall: down, perhaps, to some un- 
known process whereby the earthy particles began 
to coalesce under a vivifying influence. And as 
the race springs from lowly forms of cell life, so 
does the individual, — the body of each individual 
was once no more than a microscopic cell-nucleus 
or germinal vesicle. Therein was the germ of 
life: and the complex aggregate of cells we now 
possess has all been put together by the directive 
power latent in, or initially manifested by, that 
germ. So it is also with a seed — an apple pip, an 
acorn, or a grain of mustard seed. 

But there are many forms of animal life not in 



ANCESTRY 19 

the direct line of our ancestry — side branches, as it 
were, of the great terrestrial family. At present 
the earth is dominated by man, but at one time it 
was mastered by gigantic reptiles, larger than any 
land creature of to-day, the remains of which are 
occasionally found fossilized into stone and em- 
bedded in the rocks; fit to be collected and pre- 
served in museums. 

For millions of years the earth was inhabited by 
creatures no higher than these; the progress up- 
ward has been slow and patient: time is infinitely 
long, and the great history of the world is still 
working itself out. 

Still do lower forms exist side by side with 
higher; and many of them are suited to their sur- 
roundings, and in their place are beautiful and sane 
and perfect of their kind. But a few of the lower 
forms are lower because they have failed to reach 
the standard of their race, they are very far from 
any kind of perfection, they are at war with their 
environment; and for these, the only alternatives 
are extinction or improvement. In such a spe- 
cies as man the variety or range of achievement 
and of elevation is enormous. Among men and 
their works we find, on the one hand, cathedrals 
and oratorios and poems, and faith and charity 
and hope; on the other hand, we find slums and 
ugliness and prisons, and spite and cruelty and 
greed. 



20 ASCENTOFMAN 

The problem, the main human problem, is how 
to deal with the earth now — now that we have at 
length attained to conscious control — so as to cease 
perpetuating these lower forms, and to encourage 
the production of the higher; by giving to all chil- 
dren born on the planet a fair chance of becoming, 
each in its own way, a noble specimen of developed 
humanity. 

Struggle and Suffering. — Children should 
realize the bleak and unprotected state through 
which their remote ancestors must have begun a 
human existence, the great dangers which they had 
to overcome, the contests with beasts and with the 
severities of climate, the hardships and perils and 
straits through which they passed; and should be 
grateful to these unknown pioneers of the human 
race, to whose struggles and suffering and discov- 
eries and energies our present favored mode of 
existence on the planet is due. 

The more people realize the effort that has pre- 
ceded them and made them possible, the more are 
they likely to endeavor to be worthy of it: the more 
pitiful also will they feel when they see individuals 
failing in the struggle upward and falling back 
towards a brute condition; and the more hopeful 
they will ultimately become for the brilliant future 
of a race which from such lowly and unpromising 
beginnings has produced the material vehicle neces- 
sary for those great men who flourished in the re- 



ANCESTRY 21 

cent epoch which we speak of as antiquity; and has 
been so guided, since then, as to develop the mag- 
nificence of a Newton and a Shakespeare even on 
this island in the northern seas. 



II 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE 

Q. 2. What, then, may be meant by the Fall of 
man? 

A. At a certain stage of development man be- 
came conscious of a difference between right and 
wrong, so that thereafter, when his actions fell 
below a normal standard of conduct, he felt 
ashamed and sinful. He thus lost his animal 
innocency, and entered on a long period of human 
effort and failure; nevertheless, the consciousness 
of degradation marked a rise in the scale of exist- 
ence. 



FALL OF MAN 23 

CLAUSE II 

This clause has been inserted because of the his- 
toric, though often mistaken, notions accreted 
round a legend of Fall and of a Paradise lost; and 
it is of interest to detect the germ of truth which 
these ancient ideas contain. It may be regarded 
as really an appendage of, or introductory to, the 
next clause. 

The sense of guilt and shame is to some extent 
displayed by a dog; but it appears to be due to 
domestication, and to be a secondary result of 
human influence. In any case, it is certainly only 
the higher animals that thus exhibit the germ of 
conscience, and the sense of shame and remorse: a 
sense which is most real and genuine when it is 
independent of externally inflicted and of expected 
punishment. Wild animals appear to have no such 
feeling, they glory in what we may picturesquely 
speak of as their "misdeeds," and in running the 
gauntlet of danger to achieve them; and though 
often cruel, they are free from sin. Some savages 
— our own Norse forefathers among others — must 
on their freebooting expeditions have been in sim- 
ilar case. So were some of the Homeric heroes. 
It would be only the highest and most thoughtful 
among them that could rise to the sense of guilt and 
degradation. Only those who have risen are liable 
to fall. The summit of manhood is attained when 



24 FALL OF MAN 

evil is consciously overcome. The period before it 
was recognized as such has been called the golden 
age; but the condition of unconsciousness of evil, 
though joyous, is manifestly inferior to the state 
ultimately attainable, when paradise is regained 
through struggle and victory. 

Mere innocency, the freedom from sin by reason 
only of lack of perception, is not the highest state; 
it has been thought ideal from the point of view of 
inspiration and poetry, but it is a condition in 
which advance is necessarily limited. Sooner or 
later fuller knowledge and consciousness must ar- 
rive; and then ensues a long period of discipline 
and distress, until first a Leader and ulti- 
mately the race find their way out, through 
temptation and difficulty, once more to freedom 
and joy. 

A perception that the possibility of backsliding 
is a necessary ingredient in the making of man, 
and the consequent discernment of a soul of good- 
ness in things evil, constitute a large part of the 
teaching of Browning: 

"Then welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! 
Be our joys three parts pain! 
Strive to hold cheap the strain; 
Learn, nor account the pang: dare, never grudge the 
throe." 



DEVELOPMENT 25 

And again — 

"We fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake — " 

The intervening period between fall and victory, 
between loss of innocency and gain of righteous- 
ness, is the period with which all human history is 
concerned: and there is often a corresponding 
period in the life-history of every fully developed 
individual, during which he gropes his way through 
the darkness and longs for light. 

Immense is the area still to be traversed and 
illumined: only faint gleams penetrate the dusk. 
A Light has indeed shone through the darkness, 
but the darkness comprehended it not. The race 
itself is still enveloped in mist, and only here and 
there a glint of reflection heralds the brightness of 
a coming dawn. Yet a time will come when we 
shall cast away the works of darkness and put upon 
us the armor of light, and stand forth in the glory 
of completed manhood: 

"Nor shall I deem his object served, his end 
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, 
While only here and there a star dispels 
The darkness, here and there a towering mind 
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows. When the host 
Is out at once, to the despair of night, 
When $11 mankind alike is perfected, 
Equal in full-bloom powers — then, not till then, 
I say, begins man's general infancy." 



Ill 

CHARACTER AND WILL 

Q. 3. What is the distinctive characteristic of 
manhood? 

A. The distinctive character of man is that he 
has a sense of responsibility for his acts, having 
acquired the power of choosing between good and 
evil, with freedom to obey one motive rather than 
another. Creatures far below the human level are 
irresponsible; they feel no shame and suffer no 
remorse; they are said to have no conscience. 



CHARACTER OF MANHOOD 27 
CLAUSE III 

In putting this question, children may be 
asked to suggest characteristics which distin- 
guish man from animals. If gradually they hit 
upon clothes and fire and speech they will do 
well. 

Clothes may be defined as artificial covering 
removable at will; "artificial" meaning made by 
an artificer, or manufactured, as opposed to natu- 
ral growth, like fur. But the changes of covering 
among animals should not be overlooked: moult- 
ing for instance, renewal of skin necessitated by 
growth, protective change of color at summer and 
winter, and so on. 

The discovery of Fire is a thing to be empha- 
sized, because familiarity with lucifer matches is 
liable to engender contempt for this great pre- 
historic discovery. PeopJe should realize that at 
one time the production of flame de novo was ex- 
tremely difficult: the ordinary method of lighting 
fires being to keep some one fire always alight, so 
that brands could be ignited at it and thus it be 
spread. The fact that lighting other fires does not 
diminish or weaken the original stock, is a striking 
fact, and is an analogy with life which may be 
typified by oaks and acorns — any number of trees 
arising from a parent stock, and spreading for 
innumerable generations. The ancient ceremony 



28 CHARACTER AND WILL 

of keeping flames alight on sacred altars was 
doubtless due to the difficulty of re-ignition when 
every fire in a village had accidentally become ex- 
tinguished. That the ancients valued fire highly, 
and felt strongly the difficulty of generating it, is 
shown by the legend that the first fire must have 
been stolen from heaven; and the priests taught, 
as usual in barbarous times, that the gods were 
jealous and angry at man's discoveries and the 
progress of science. 

Speech and language is a most vital characteristic 
of manhood, and is largely responsible for the 
chasm between him and other animals. The gest- 
ures and noises of animals must not be overlooked, 
however, and they often seem to have mysterious 
modes of communication of some kind. But they 
have nothing akin to writing; and this portentous 
discovery enables not merely communication be- 
tween contemporary living men, but an accumula- 
tion of information and experience throughout the 
centuries; so that a man is no longer dependent 
solely on his own individual experience, but is 
able to draw upon the records and wisdom 
of the past. Owing to this power of recording 
and handing on information, a discovery once 
made becomes the possession of the human race 
henceforth forever — unless it relapses into bar- 
barism. 



WILL 29 

Will 

None of these characteristics, however, is empha- 
sized in the clause, because they lead too far afield 
if pursued. For our present purpose we regard the 
sense of " conscience," spoken of in the previous 
answer, as the most important and highest char- 
acteristic of all, — the sense of responsibiiity, the 
power of self-determination, the building up of 
character, so that ultimately it becomes impossible 
to be actuated by unworthy motives; our actions 
are now controlled not by external impulses only, 
but largely by our own characters and wills. The 
man who is the creature of impulse, or the slave of 
his passions, cannot be said to be his own master, 
or to be really free; he drifts hither and thither ac- 
cording to the caprice or the temptation of the 
moment, he is untrustworthy and without solidity 
or dignity of character. The free man is he who 
can control himself, does not obey every idea as it 
occurs to him, but weighs and determines for him- 
self, and is not at the mercy of external influences. 
This is the real meaning of choice and free will. 
It does not mean that actions are capricious and 
undetermined; but that they are determined by 
nothing less than the totality of things. They are 
not determined by the external world alone, so that 
they can be calculated and predicted from outside: 
they are determined by self and external world to- 



30 RESPONSIBILITY 

gether. A free man is the master of his mo- 
tives, and selects that motive which he wills to 
obey. 

If he chooses wrongly, he suffers; he is liable also 
to make others suffer, and he feels remorse. In a 
high grade of existence no other punishment is 
necessary. Artificial punishment has for its object 
the production of artificial remorse, in creatures too 
low as yet for the genuine feeling. Artificial pun- 
ishment can be easily exaggerated and misapplied, 
and should be employed with extreme caution. It 
is always ambitious and often dangerous, though 
sometimes justifiable and necessary, to attempt to 
take the place of Providence. Even between par- 
ents and children, enforcement of another's will 
may be overdone, till the power of self-control and 
the instinct of duty are impaired. 

The sense of responsibility inevitably grows with 
power and knowledge, and is proportional thereto. 
By means of drugs a grown man may enfeeble his 
will till he becomes in some sense irresponsible for 
his actions; but he is not irresponsible for his wil- 
ful destruction of a human faculty; and in so far 
as he is dangerous to others he must be treated 
accordingly. 

The struggle in man's nature between the better 
and the worse elements, — sometimes spoken of as 
a struggle between dual personalities, and other- 
wise depicted as a conflict between the flesh and 



CHARACTER 31 

the spirit, — is a natural consequence of our double 
ancestry (spoken of in Clause XII.) our ascent from 
animal fellow-creatures, and our relationship with a 
higher order of being. No man in his sober senses 
really wills to do evil; he does it with some motive 
which he tries to think justifies it; or else he does 
it against his real will because mastered by some- 
thing lower. So Plato teaches in the Gorgias; and 
St. Paul says the same thing: 

"The good which I would I do not; but the evil 
which I would not, that I do." 

The conflict is often a period of torment and 
misery. "O, wretched man that I am! who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death ?" 

Whenever the better nature prevails in the strug- 
gle there is a mystic sense of strength and comfort, 
universally testified to by humanity, even though 
the victory results in temporal loss or persecution; 
"in all these things we are more than conquerors." 
And this fact corresponds with part of the answer 
to Question 6 below. 

We can recognize that our evil impulses are the 
natural remnant of bestial ancestry, and need not 
be due to diabolical promptings. An animal, 
though perhaps innocent from lack of knowledge, 
is bound and enslaved by its instincts; for instance, 
the apparently intelligent and social bee is driven 
by racial instincts into a prescribed course of action; 
a cat can no more refrain from trying to catch a 



32 CHARACTER AND WILL 

bird than a man of high nature can allow himself to 
commit a crime. 

The weak man often allows his brute nature to 
get the upper hand and enslave his higher self, and 
he hates himself afterwards for the degradation so 
caused; but the strong and free man takes control 
and dominates his animal nature. 

"If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than 
their own, 
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice 
be mute ? 
No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the 
throne, 
Hold the Sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy Province 
of the brute." 



IV 
DUTY AND SERVICE 

Q. 4. What is the duty of man? 

A. To assist his fellows, to develop his own 
higher self, to strive towards good in every way 
open to his powers, and generally to seek to know 
the laws of Nature and to obey the will of God, 
in whose service alone can be found that harmo- 
nious exercise of the faculties which is synonymous 
with perfect freedom. 



DUTY 35 

CLAUSE IV 

The laws of nature signify the ascertained proc- 
esses and consistencies observable in all surround- 
ing things; they are a special and partial, but 
accurately ascertainable, aspect of what is called 
the will of God. They cannot be broken or really 
disobeyed; but we may set ourselves in fruitless 
antagonism to them, — as by building a bridge too 
weak to stand, by various kinds of wrong conduct, 
eating unduly or wrong kind of food, by careless 
sanitation and neglect of health. But all such 
ignorance or neglect of the laws of nature involves 
disaster. By knowing them, and acting with them, 
we show wisdom; and by steady persistence in 
right action we attain the highest development 
possible to us at present; we also escape that 
dreary sense of disloyal hopeless struggle against 
circumstances which is inconsistent with harmony 
or freedom. So long as the will of any creature is 
antagonistic to the rest of the universe, it is not 
fully developed. There must be a harmony among 
all the parts of a whole; but in the case of free 
beings it is not a forced but a willing harmony that 
is aimed at; and all experience takes time. 

"Our wills are ours, we know not how, 
Our wills are ours to make them Thine." 

The higher a man can raise himself in the scale 



36 SERVICE 

of existence — by education, right conduct, and per- 
sistent effort — the more he may be able to help his 
fellows. To some are given ten talents, to some 
five, and to another one; but it is the duty of all to 
use their talents to the uttermost, so that they may 
fulfil the intention of the higher Power which 
brought us into existence and intrusted us with 
responsible control. Events do not happen with- 
out adequate cause, and in so far as agents, stew- 
ards, or trustees rest on their oars or misuse their 
opportunities, improvements now possible will not 
be accomplished. We must regard ourselves as 
instruments and channels of the Divine action, 
even in a few things we must be good and faithful 
servants, and it is our privilege to help now in the 
conscious evolution and development of a higher 
life on this planet. 

The race of man has far to travel before it can 
be regarded as an efficient organ of the Divine 
Purpose. The extremes of ability and character 
and virtue are widely separated; and the occa- 
sional elevation of a leader, here and there, serves 
but to display the darkness in which the majority 
of a race so newly evolved are still imprisoned; 
crawling feebly towards the light, in a state of only 
rudimentary consciousness; anxious about trivi- 
alities, opposing and hindering instead of helping 
one another, competing rather than co-operating, 
fighting and struggling and killing, in the throes of 



DUTY 37 

racial birth. It is often difficult to realize the pos- 
sible perfectness of human life, in the midst of so 
much difficulty and discouragement. 

And much of the difficulty is unnecessary and 
artificial. Deficiency in the means of subsistence, 
or in modest comfort, is not a reasonable condition 
of human life. The earth is ready to yield plenty 
for all, and will when properly treated and under- 
stood; but never will it spoil its children with 
bounties from a neglected breast. It must be 
coaxed and coerced, and then it will respond lavish- 
ly. We expend plenty of energy already, only we 
misapply it. If only our aim could be changed and 
our energy be concentrated on clear and conscious 
pressing forward, with a definite mark in view — 
towards which all could work together and all to- 
gether could attain, Instead of one at the expense of 
others — "then would the earth put forth her in- 
crease, and God, even our own God, would give us 
His blessing." 

(The " duty " clauses in the Church Catechism are 
well worth learning.) 



V 
GOODNESS AND BEAUTY AND GOD 

Q. 5. What is meant by good and evil? 

A. Good is that which promotes development, 
and is in harmony with the will of God. It is akin 
to health and beauty and happiness. 

Evil is that which retards or frustrates develop- 
ment, and injures some part of the universe. It is 
akin to disease and ugliness and misery. 



GOODNESS 39 

CLAUSE V 

" Development " means unfolding of latent pos- 
sibilities; as a bud unfolds into a flower, or as a 
chicken emerges from an egg. 

The idea controlling this answer is that growth 
and development are in accordance with the law 
of the universe, and that destruction and decay are 
features which are only good in so far as they may 
be on the way to something better; as leaf-mould 
assists the growth of flowers, or as discords in their 
proper place conduce to, or prepare for, harmony. 
In the same way conditions and practices which 
once were good become in process of time corrupt; 
yet out of them must grow the better future. 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. " 

The law of the Universe, and the will of God, are 
here regarded as in some sort synonymous terms. 
It is impossible properly to define such a term as 
"God," but it is permissible reverently to use the 
term for a mode of regarding the Universe as in- 
vested with what in human beings we call person- 
ality, consciousness, and other forms of intelligence, 
emotion, and will. These attributes, undoubtedly 
possessed by a part, are not to be denied to the 



40 GOD 

whole; however little we may be able as yet to form 
a clear conception of their larger meaning. 

It is quite clear that the Universe was not made 
by man; it must owe its existence to some higher 
Power of which man has but an infinitesimal knowl- 
edge. Some primary conception of such a Power 
has been independently formed by every fraction of 
the human race, and is what under various symbols 
has been called God. 

It is sometimes asserted that God does not pos- 
sess powers and faculties and attributes which we 
ourselves possess. But that is preposterous: for 
though we may be able to form no conception as to 
the particular form our powers would take, when 
possessed by a being even moderately higher in the 
scale of existence than ourselves; and although 
vastly more must be attributed to the Reality de- 
noted by the term "God" than we can even begin 
to conceive of; yet such a term, if it is to have any 
meaning at all, must at least include everything we 
have so far been able to discover as existent in the 
Universe. It must, in fact, be the most compre- 
hensive term that can be employed; though for 
practical purposes it may be permissible to discrim- 
inate, and exclude from its connotation, portions 
such as "self," and "the world," and sometimes, 
though with less excuse, even an abstraction like 
"nature"; considering these separately from the 
more purely personal aspect to which attention is 



BEAUTY 41 

directed by our ordinary use of the term God. It 
is convenient to differentiate the principle of evil 
also, and to reserve it for separate study. 

Sometimes the totality of existence is spoken of 
as the "Absolute," and the term God is limited to 
the conception of a Being of infinite Goodness and 
Mercy, the ultimate Impersonation of Truth and 
Love and Beauty; a Being of whose attributes the 
highest faculties and perceptions of man are but a 
dim shadow or reflection. 

In man, goodness is the path towards higher de- 
velopment, and a radiant beauty is the crown and 
perfection of life; so the trinity of Truth, Good- 
ness, and Beauty, often referred to in literature, 
may, without undue stretching, be considered as 
also equivalent to what is represented by the words, 
the Way, the Truth, and the Life; they are three 
aspects of what after all is one essential unity. That 
which is good, in the highest sense, cannot help 
being both true and beautiful. Nevertheless, for 
many practical purposes, these ideas must be dis- 
criminated; and the question is occasionally forced 
upon our attention whether vitality or beauty can 
possibly be enlisted in the service of evil; and if so, 
whether it is still in itself good. 

We have to learn that most good things can be 
misapplied, and that though they do not in them- 
selves cease to be good, their desecration is espe- 
cially deadly. That the corruption of the best 



42 GOODNESS 

abets the cause of the worst, is proverbial; the 
prostitution of high gifts to base ends is the saddest 
of spectacles. 

" Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." 

Oratory, the power of persuasion, can thus be de- 
based, and the passions of the multitude may be 
incited by the Divine fire of eloquence. Rhetoric 
and sophistry have been on this ground condemned 
when they were misused for the cultivation of the 
art of persuasion apart from knowledge and virtue; 
but almost every good gift — personal affection, 
medical science, artistic genius — has every now and 
then been abused; and the higher and nobler the 
faculty, the more sorrowful and diabolical must be 
its prostitution. 

It has been an ancient puzzle to consider whether 
the principle of goodness is the supreme entity in 
the universe — a principle to which God as well as 
man is subject — or whether it represents only the 
arbitrary will of the Creator. Many answers have 
been given, but the answer from the side of science 
is clear: — 

No existing universe can tend on the whole tow- 
ards contraction and decay; because that would 
foster annihilation, and so any incipient attempt 
would not have survived; consequently an actually 
existing and flowing universe must on the whole 



GOODNESS 43 

cherish development, expansion, growth: and so 
tend towards infinity rather than towards zero. 
The problem is therefore only a variant of the gen- 
eral problem of existence. Given existence, of a 
non-stagnant kind, and ultimate development must 
be its law. Good and evil can be defined in terms 
of development and decay respectively. This may 
be regarded as part of a revelation of the nature of 
Godo 



VI 

MAN PART OF THE UNIVERSE 

Q. 6. How does man know good from evil ? 

A. His own nature, when uncorrupted by greed, 
is sufficiently in tune with the universe to enable 
him to be well aware in general of what is a help 
or hindrance to the guiding Spirit, of which he 
himself is a real and effective portion. 



DIVINE AGENCY OF MAN 45 

CLAUSE VI 

We are not something separate from the Uni- 
verse, but a part of it: a part of it endowed with 
some power of control — power to guide ourselves 
and others and assist in the scheme of development 
— power also to go wrong, to set ourselves contrary 
to the tendency of things, to delay progress, and 
break ourselves in conflict with overpowering 
forces. 

When not thus warped or misled, we fit into the 
general scheme, and, like all other portions of exis- 
tence, can fulfil our function and take our due share 
in the general progress. We are a part of the 
Universe, and the Universe is a part of God. Even 
we also, therefore, have a Divine Nature and may 
truly be called sons and co-workers with God. The 
consciousness of this constitutes our highest privi- 
lege, and likewise our gravest responsibility. Per- 
ception of this is dawning with increasing bright- 
ness on the human race in the light of the doctrine 
of evolution. The process of evolution has no end : 
progress is towards an advancing goal. At one 
time 

". . . all tended to mankind, 
And, man produced, all has its end thus far: 
But in completed man begins anew 
A tendency to God." 

We are essential and active agents in the terres- 



46 MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 

trial order of things, analogous to the white cor- 
puscles in the human body. The body may be 
regarded as a colony of cells, some of which are 
living and moving on their own account; in com- 
plete ignorance of the feelings and perceptions of 
the larger whole of which they are microscopic 
units, towards whose health and comfort neverthe- 
less they unconsciously but very really contribute; 
it is in fact by their activity that the health of the 
body is maintained against adverse influences. So 
it is with the health of the body politic, to which our 
wise activity is necessary and essential; we are to 
be a corporate portion of the whole, effective ser- 
vants of the guiding and controlling Spirit. But 
in our case it is not merely unconscious service that 
is called for: we are privileged, not only to be ser- 
vants, but friends; not only to work, but to sympa- 
thize; to give not only dutiful but affectionate 
service. This is required of the humblest, and no 
more is required of the noblest: 

"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; 
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
thy God ?" 



VII 

THE NATURE OF EVIL 

Q. 7. How comes it that evil exists ? 

A. Evil is not an absolute thing, but has refer- 
ence to a standard of attainment. The possibility 
of evil is the necessary consequence of a rise in the 
scale of moral existence; just as an organism whose 
normal temperature is far above "absolute zero" 
is necessarily liable to damaging and deadly cold. 
But cold is not in itself a positive or created thing. 



EVIL 49 

CLAUSE VII 

The term "evil " is relative: dirt, for instance, is 
well known to be only matter out of place; weeds 
are plants flourishing where they are not wanted; 
there are no weeds in botany, there are weeds in 
gardening; even disease is only one organism grow- 
ing at the expense of another; ugliness is non-ex- 
istent save to creatures with a sense of beauty, and 
is due to unsuitable grouping. Analyzed into its 
elements, every particle of matter must be a miracle 
of law and order, and, in that sense, of beauty. 

Recent discoveries in connection with the in- 
ternal structure of an atom, whereby the constitu- 
ent particles are found to move in intricate and 
ascertainable orbits — leading to a new science of 
atomic astronomy— emphasize this assertion to an 
extent barely credible ten years ago. 

Even what can be called filth, that is to say 
material which to the casual observer, or when 
encountered at unsuitable times, is disgusting, may 
to an investigator or under other circumstances 
be of the highest interest; and may even arouse 
a sense of admiration, by reason of manifest sub- 
servience to function, 

Many social evils are due to human folly and 
stupidity, and will cease when the race has risen 
to a standard already attained by individuals. 

Excessive hunger and starvation are manifestly 



5 o NATURE OF EVIL 

evils of a negative character: they are merely a 
deficiency of supply: they have no business to 
exist in a civilized and organized community. 
Famine and pestilence can be checked by applica- 
tions of science. 

Pain is an awful reality, when highly developed 
organisms are subjected to wounds and poison and 
disease. Some kinds of pain have been wickedly in- 
flicted by human beings on one another in the past, 
and other kinds may be removed or mitigated by 
the progress of discovery in the future. Physio- 
logically the nerve processes involved are well 
worthy of study and control. Premature avoid- 
ance of pain would have been dangerous to the 
race, and not really helpful to the individual: but 
great advances in this direction are now foreshad- 
owed. Already surgical operations can be con- 
ducted painlessly, and a time is foreshadowed when 
by hypnosis excessive and useless torture can be 
shut off from consciousness, by intelligence and 
will; somewhat as the random leakage of an 
electric supply can be checked. All this will come 
in due time: 

"The best is yet to be, 
The last of life for which the first was made: 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith a whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half: trust God, see all, nor be afraid." 

The contrast between good and evil can be well 



EVIL 51 

illustrated by the contrast between heat and cold. 
Cold is only the absence of heat, and is made at 
once possible and necessary by the existence of 
degrees of heat. The fact that we regard excessive 
cold as an evil is only because our organization 
demands a certain temperature for life; there is 
nothing evil about cold in itself: it is only evil in 
its relation to organisms sufficiently high to be 
damaged by it. The real fact is their normally 
high temperature, and their delicacy of response 
to stimuli. These things are good; and the only 
evil is a defect or deficiency of these good things. 

The power of assimilating food leaves the organ- 
ism open to the pangs of hunger, that is, of insuffi- 
cient nutriment, — manifestly only the absence of a 
good. 

Every rise involves the possibility of fall. Every 
advance seems to entail a corresponding penalty. 

In a world devoid of life there is no death; in a 
world without conscious beings there is no sin. 
In a world without affection there would be no 
grief; and to a larger vision much of our grief may 
be needless: — 

"My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves, 
So dark that men cry out against the Heavens. 
Who knows but that the darkness is in man ?" 

A mechanical universe might be perfectly good. 
Every atom of matter perfectly obeys the forces 



52 NATUREOFEVIL 

acting upon it, and there is no error or wickedness 
or fault or rebellion in lifeless nature. Evil only 
begins when existence takes a higher turn. There 
is not even destruction or death in the inorganic 
world — only transformation. The higher possi- 
bility called life entails the correlative evils called 
death and disease. The possibility of keen sensa- 
tion, which permits pleasure, also involves capacity 
for the corresponding penalty called pain: but the 
pain is in ourselves, and is the result of our sensi- 
tiveness combined with imperfection. 

The still higher attribute of conscious striving 
after holiness, which must be the prerogative of 
free agents capable of virtue or purposed good, and 
marks so enormous a rise in the scale of creation, — 
involves the possibility that beings so endowed may 
fall from their high level, and, by definitely apply- 
ing themselves to harm instead of good, may abuse 
their high power and suffer the penalty called sin; 
but the evil in all cases is a warped or distorted 
good, and has reference to the higher beings which 
are now in existence. 



'There shall never be one lost good! what was shall live 

as before; 
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; 
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much 

good more; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect 

round," 



THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 53 

Some further idea of the necessity for evil can be 
conveyed as follows: — 

Contrast is an inevitable attribute of reality. 
Sickness is the negative and opposite of health: 
without sickness we should not be aware what 
health was. There is no sickness in inorganic 
nature; yet, even there, contrast is the essence of 
existence. Everything that is must be surrounded 
by regions where it is not. There is no stupid 
infinity, or absence of boundaries, about existing 
things, — however infinite their totality may be, — 
no absence of limitation, either of perfection or of 
anything else. Existence involves limitation. A 
tree that is here is excluded from being everywhere 
else. Goodness would have no meaning if bad- 
ness were impossible or non-existent. 

"No ill no good! such counter-terms, my son, 
Are border-races, holding, each its own 
By endless war." 

We are not machines or automata, but free and 
conscious and active agents, and so must contend 
with evil as well as rejoice in good. Conflict and 
difficulty are essential for our training and develop- 
ment: even for our existence at this grade. With 
their aid we have become what we are; without 
them we should vegetate and degenerate; whereas 
the will of the Universe is that we arise and walk. 



VIII 
THE MEANING OF SIN 

Q. 8. What is sin? 

A. Sin is the deliberate and wilful act of a free 
agent who sees the better and chooses the worse, 
and thereby acts injuriously to himself and others. 
The root sin is selfishness, whereby needless trouble 
and pain are inflicted on others; when fully de- 
veloped it involves moral suicide. 



SIN 55 

CLAUSE VIII 

The essence of sin is error against light and 
knowledge, and against our own higher nature. 
Vice is error against natural law. Crime is error 
against society. Sin against our own higher nature 
may be truly said to be against God, because it is 
against that purpose or destiny which by Divine 
arrangement is open to us, if only we will pursue 
and realize it. 

Sin is a disease: the whole of existence is so 
bound together that disease in one part means pain 
throughout; the innocent may suffer with the 
guilty, and suffering may extend to the Highest. 
The healing influences of forgiveness, felt by the 
broken and the contrite heart, achieve spiritual 
reform though they remove no penalty. Every 
eddy of conduct, for good or ill, must have its 
definite consequence. 

We have high authority for the statement that 
hard circumstances and disabilities, not of our own 
making, are mercifully taken into account; while 
privileges and advantages w T eigh heavily in the 
scale against us, if we prove unworthy: 

"If ye were blind ye would have no sin ; 
but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth." 

A man or woman's nature may be so weakened 
and warped by miserable surroundings, that its 



56 SELFISHNESS 

strength is insufficient to cope with its environment. 
Pity, and a wish to help, are the feelings which such 
a state of things should arouse, together with an 
active determination to improve or remove the con- 
ditions which lead to such an untoward result. 
Most human failures are the result of bad social 
arrangements, and they constitute an indictment 
against human inertness and selfishness. It is a 
terrible responsibility to turn a human soul out of 
terrestrial life worse than when it entered that 
phase of existence. In so far as it accomplishes 
that, humanity is performing the function of a 
devil. Deterioration of others is usually achieved 
under the influence of some of the protean forms 
of social greed and selfishness. 

Another reason why selfishness is spoken of as 
specially deadly, and even suicidal, depends upon 
certain regions of scientific inquiry not yet in- 
corporated into orthodox science and therefore 
still to be regarded as speculative; it may be out- 
lined as follows: — 

Our present familiar methods of communicating 
with one another are such as speech, writing, and 
other conventional codes of signs more or less 
developed. It appears possible that a germ or 
nucleus of another, apparently immediate or di- 
rectly psychical, method of communication may 
also exist; which has nothing to do with our known 
bodily organs, although its impressions are appre- 



SIN 57 

hended or interpreted by the receiver as if they 
were due to customary modes or forms of sensa- 
tion. Whether that be so or not, it is certain that 
bodily neighborhood and blood-relationship con- 
fer opportunities for making friends which should 
be utilized to the utmost, and that frien dship and 
affection are the most important things in life. 

The intercourse with, and active assistance of, 
others enlarges our own nature; and hereafter, 
when we have lost our bodily organs, it is probable 
that we shall be able to communicate only with 
those with whom we are connected by links of 
sympathy and affection. 

A person who cuts himself off from all human 
intercourse and lives a miserly self-centred life, will 
ultimately, therefore, find himself alone in the uni- 
verse; and, unless taken pity on and helped in a 
spirit of self-sacrifice, may as well be out of exist- 
ence altogether. (A book called Cecilia de Noel 
emphasizes this truth under the guise of a story.) 
That is why developed selfishness is spoken of 
as moral suicide: it is one of those evil things 
which truly assault and hurt the soul. It is a dis- 
integrating and repelling agency* Love is the link- 
ing and uniting force in the spiritual universe, en- 
abling it to cohere into a unity, in analogy w T ith 
attractive forces in the material cosmos. 

It has been necessary to dwell on the sin 
and pain and sorrow in the w T orld, but the 



58 SIN 

amount of good must be emphatically recognized 
too. 

Our highest aspirations, and longings for some- 
thing better, are a sign that better things exist. It 
is not given to the creature to exceed the Creator 
in imagination or in goodness; and the best and 
highest we can imagine shall be more than fulfilled 
by reality — in due time: — 

* f All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall 
exist : 
Not its semblance, but itself; . . . 
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour." 



IX 

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE 

Q. 9- Are there beings lower in the scale of exist* 
ence than man ? 

A. Yes, multitudes. In every part of the earth 
where life is possible, there we find it developed. 
Life exists in every variety of animal, in earth and 
air and sea, and in every species of plant. 



STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 61 

CLAUSE IX 

One of the facts of nature, which we must weld 
into our conception of the scheme of the universe, 
is the strenuous effort made by all live things to 
persist in multifarious ways, — spreading out into 
quite unlikely regions, in the struggle for existence, 
and establishing themselves wherever life is possi- 
ble. The fish slowly developing into a land animal, 
the reptile beginning to raise itself in the air and 
ultimately becoming a bird, the mammal return- 
ing under stress of circumstances to the water, as a 
seal or whale, or betaking itself to the air in search 
of food, in the form of a bat, — all these are in- 
stances of a universal tendency throughout animate 
nature. 

Sometimes this determined effort at persistence 
breeds forms that appear to us ugly and deleterious. 
For the struggle results not only in beneficent 
organisms, but also in parasites and pests and 
blights, and may be held to account for the numer- 
ous cases of the interference of one form of life with 
another: one form utilizing another for its own 
growth, and sometimes destroying that other in the 
process. It accounts also for the ravages of dis- 
ease, which for the most part is an outcome of the 
establishment of a foreign and alien growth in a 
living body of higher grade, — a growth whose vital 
secretions are poisonous to its temporary host. On 



62 LIFE 

the other hand the theory of manuring, the purifi- 
cation of rivers, the treatment of sewage, the use of 
opsonins and of serum-injections, — all illustrate the 
ministration of one form of life to another; they 
exhibit the contribution of beneficent organisms, 
— that is, of forms of life which promote higher 
development and conduce to well-being. 

Many of the microbes and bacteria and low 
forms of cell life are beneficent in this way; and it 
is our function, — as ourselves one of the forms of 
life, — now consciously to intervene and take con- 
trol of these vital processes. By investigation and 
study we can gradually understand the condition 
and life history of each organism, and then can 
take such measures as will encourage the beneficent 
forms, whether plant or animal, and destroy or 
eliminate those which from the human point of 
view are deadly and destructive, — attacking them 
at their weakest and most vulnerable stage. Wide- 
ly regarded or interpreted, this function covers an 
immense range of possible activity — from every 
kind of scientific agriculture and the extirpating of 
tropical diseases, to the reformation of slum dwell- 
ings and the encouragement of physical training 
and school hygiene. As part of our work in regu- 
lating this planet and utilizing its possibilities to 
the utmost for higher purposes, the regulation of 
vital conditions is probably our most pressing, and 
also at present our most neglected, corporate duty. 



LIFE AND JOY 63 

Stupidity and a mistaken parsimony are among 
the serious obstacles with which the progressive 
portions of humanity have to contend. 

Another aspect of the universal struggle for self- 
manifestation and corporeal realization, which 
plays so large a part in all activity and is especial- 
ly marked in the domain of life, is illustrated on 
a higher level by that overpowering instinct or 
impulse towards production and self-realization, 
which is characteristic of genius. It may be said 
that throughout nature, from the lowest to the 
highest, a tendency to self-realization, and a mani- 
festation of joy in existence, are conspicuous. 

It is thought that something akin to this tendency 
is exhibited in a region beyond and above what is 
ordinarily conceived of as " Nature/' The process 
of evolution can be regarded as the gradual unfold- 
ing of the Divine Thought, or Logos, throughout 
the universe, by the action of Spirit upon matter. 
Achievement seems as if irradiated by a certain 
Happiness: and thus a poet like Browning is led 
to speak of the Divine Being as renewing his ancient 
creative rapture in the processes of nature: — joying 
in the sunbeams basking upon sand, sharing the 
pleasures of the wild life in the creatures of the 
woods, 

"Where dwells enjoyment there is He; n 
and so to conjecture that 



64 LIFEANDJOY 

"God tastes an infinite joy 
In infinite ways — one everlasting bliss 
From whom all being emanates, all power 
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore." 



X 

COSMIC INTELLIGENCE 

Q. 10. Are there any beings higher in the scale 
of existence than man ? 

A. Man is the highest of the dwellers on the 
planet earth, but the earth is only one of many 
planets warmed by the sun, and the sun is only 
one of a myriad of similar suns, which are so far 
off that we barely see them, and group them in- 
discriminately as "stars." We may reasonably 
conjecture that in some of the innumerable worlds 
circling round those distant suns there must be 
beings far higher in the scale of existence than 
ourselves; indeed, we have no knowledge which 
enables us to assert the absence of intelligence 
anywhere. 



COSMIC LIFE 67 

CLAUSE X 

The existence of higher beings and of a Highest 
Being is a fundamental element in every religious 
creed. There is no scientific reason for imagining 
it possible that man is the highest intelligent exist- 
ence — there is no reason to suppose that we dwellers 
on this planet know more about the universe than 
any other existing creature. Such an idea, strictly 
speaking, is absurd. Science has investigated our 
ancestry and shown that we are the product of 
planetary processes. We may be, and surely must 
be, something more, but this we clearly are — a 
development of life on this planet earth. Science 
has also revealed to us an innumerable host of 
other worlds, and has relegated the earth to its now 
recognized subordinate place as one of a countless 
multitude of worlds. 

Consider a spherical region bounded by the 
distance of the farthermost stars visible in the 
strongest telescope, or say with a radius corre- 
sponding to a parallax of one-thousandth of a 
second of arc, so that the time taken by light to 
travel right across it is six thousand years: — Lord 
Kelvin, treating of such a portion of Universe, 
says: 

"There may also be a large amount of matter in 
many stars outside the sphere of 3.10 16 kilometres 
radius, but however much matter there may be 



68 INTELLIGENCE 

outside it, it seems to be made highly probable, by 
§§ 11-21, that the total quantity of matter within 
it is greater than one hundred million times, and 
less than two thousand million times, the sun's 
mass." {Philosophical Magazine, August, igoi.) 

It does not follow that all this matter is dis- 
tributed in masses like our sun with its attendant 
planets; but, on the average, that is as likely an 
arrangement as another, and it corresponds with 
what we know. 

So, given, on this hypothesis, the existence of 
some thousand million solar systems or families of 
worlds, within our ken, and knowing what we do 
about the exuberant impulse towards vital develop- 
ment wherever it is possible, we must conclude that 
those worlds contain life; and if so, it is against all 
reasonable probability that the only world of which 
we happen to know the details contains the creature 
highest in the entire scale. It would be just as 
reasonable to imagine, what we happen to know is 
false, that our particular sun is the largest, and our 
particular planet the brightest of all, as it is to con- 
jecture that this world is the highest and best, or 
the only one in existence. 

The self-glorifying instinct of the human mind 
has resented this negative conclusion, and for long 
clung to the Ptolemaic idea that the earth was no 
mere planet among a crowd of others, but was the 
centre of the universe; and that the sun and all 



COSMIC LIFE 69 

the stars were subsidiary to it. A Ptolemaic idea 
clings to some of us still — not now as regards the 
planet, but as regards man; and we, insignificant 
creatures, with senses only just open to the porten- 
tous meaning of the starry sky, presume — some of 
us — to deny the existence of higher powers and 
higher knowledge than our own. We are accus- 
tomed to be careful as to what we assert; we are 
liable to be unscrupulous as to what we deny. It 
is possible to find people who, knowing nothing or 
next to nothing of the Universe, are prepared to 
limit existence to that of which they have had 
experience, and to measure the cosmos in terms 
of their own understanding. Their confidence 
in themselves, their shut minds and self-satisfied 
hearts, are things to marvel at. The fact is that 
no glimmer of a conception of the real magnitude 
and complexity of existence can ever have illu- 
minated their cosmic view. 



XI 

IMMANENCE 

Q. II. What caused and what maintains exist- 
ence? 

A. Of our own knowledge we are unable to 
realize the meaning of origination or of main- 
tenance; all that we ourselves can accomplish in 
the physical world is to move things into desired 
positions, and leave them to act on one another. 
Nevertheless our effective movements are all in- 
spired by thought, and so we conceive that there 
must be some Intelligence immanent in all the 
processes of nature, for they are not random or 
purposeless, but organized and beautiful. 



IMMANENCE 71 

CLAUSE XI 
Origin 

We cannot conceive the origin of any funda- 
mental existence. We can describe the beginning 
of any particular object in its present shape, but 
its substance always existed in some other shape 
previously; and nothing really either springs into 
being or ceases to exist. A cloud or dew becomes 
visible, and then evaporates, seeming to spring into 
being and then vanish away; but as water vapor 
it had a past history and will have a future, both 
apparently without limit. In our own case, and 
in the case of any live thing, the history is unknown 
to us; but ultimate origin or absolute beginning, 
save of individual collocations, is unthinkable. 

The truth that science teaches, on the one 
hand, is that everything is a perpetual flux, 

7ravra pel ical ovdev jiivet^ 

that nothing is permanent and fixed and unchange- 
able: 

"The hills are shadows, and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands; 
They melt like mists, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 

On the other hand we learn that, in its ultimate 
essence and reality, everything is persistent and 



72 IMMANENCE 

eternal; that it is the form alone that changes, 
while the substance endures. No end and no be- 
ginning — a continual Eternal Now — this is the 
scientific interpretation of I AM. 

There are those who think that in the last resort 
the ultimate reality will be found to be of the nature 
of Spirit, Consciousness, and Mind. It may be so 
— it probably is so — but that is a teaching of Phi- 
losophy, not at present of Science. 

The teaching of religion may be summarized thus : 
"All that exists, exists only by the communica- 
tion of God's infinite being. All that has intelli- 
gence, has it only by derivation from His sovereign 
reason; and all that acts, acts only from the im- 
pulse of His supreme activity. It is He who does 
all in all; it is He who, at each instant of our life, 
is the beating of our heart, the movement of our 
limbs, the light of our eyes, the intelligence of our 
spirit, the soul of our soul." — Fenelon. 

Maintenance 

So also with regard to maintenance. 

The multifarious processes around us — the suc- 
cession of the seasons, the flow of sap in trees, the 
circulation of our own blood, the digestion of our 
food — all these things are beyond our power, and 
are not contrived or managed by our conscious 
agency — not even the occurrences in our own 



IMMANENCE 73 

bodies. But by means of such unconscious proc- 
esses our muscular and nervous systems are sup- 
plied with nutriment, and we thus become master 
of a certain amount of energy. 

The energy of our muscles, or of some of them, 
is within our control, and we can thereby direct 
other physical energies into desired channels; but 
we cannot in the slightest degree alter the amount 
of that energy. We utilize terrestrial energy, by 
directing and controlling its transformations and 
transferences, within the limits of our knowledge; 
but we do it always by moving material objects, 
and in no other way. For instance, we cannot 
directly or consciously generate an electric current, 
or magnetism, or light, or life; for all these things 
we depend upon partially explored properties of 
matter, which we can arrange in a certain way so 
as to achieve a desired end. 

A multitude of complex processes are constantly 
occurring in our bodies without any intervention of 
consciousness; and though we may make a study 
of the functions of the several organs, and gradually 
learn something about them, it is a study as of some- 
thing outside ourselves; the due performance of 
bodily function is independent of our volition. We 
can interfere with and damage our organs, and with 
skill we can so arrange damaged parts that the self- 
healing process shall have time and opportunity to 
act; we can also introduce beneficent agencies and 



74 IMMANENCE 

stimulating drugs; but our power of direct action is 
practically limited to muscular and mental activity. 

Digression on Rudimentary Physiology 

It is well for children to have some conception 
of the complex processes constantly occurring in 
their own organisms. 

The fact that the heart is a continuously acting 
pump, urging the blood along arteries to the tissues, 
— to places where it picks up nutriment, to places 
where the crudely enriched blood is oxidized, to 
places where the elaborated material is deposited 
so as to replenish waste and effect growth — all this 
should be known; and the partial analogy with the 
sap of trees, rising in the trunk to be elaborated in 
the leaves by means of sunshine and air, and then 
descending ready to be deposited as liquid wood, 
can be pointed out. 

The function of the lungs, wherein the blood dis- 
persed throughout a spongey texture is exposed in 
immense surface to the air, without loss or leakage 
other than what properly transpires through the 
membranes, and the consequent advantage of deep 
breathing and of fresh clean air, — all this has a 
practical as well as a theoretical interest. 

The lungs are more under voluntary control than 
the heart, but the way exercise increases the circula- 
tion, and generally blows the fires of the body, is 
also of practical interest. 






IMMANENCE 75 

Some idea of the processes of digestion can be 
given, especially the function of the stomach and 
the intestines; the liver may be too difficult, but the 
salivary glands are fairly simple, and so are the 
kidneys and the skin. The way the muscles act as 
an efficient mechanical engine, depending on the 
consumption of fuel and the conservation of energy, 
can be superficially explained, with some idea of 
the stimulating nervous system and controlling 
brain cells. The sensory nerves and specialized 
nerve-endings demand specific treatment.' 

These and other physiological details may seem 
out of place, but they are strictly appropriate; for 
the essence of Immanence is that nothing is com- 
mon or unclean, until abused: and the nobler the 
faculty, the fouler is the degradation caused by its 
abuse. A sense of the responsibility involved in the 
possession or lease of all this intricate mass of 
mechanism, intrusted to our care, and the wish to 
keep it in good order — without giving unnecessary 
trouble to others to set it right, and without blas- 
pheming the Maker by applying it to bad and ig- 
noble ends — will arise almost imperceptibly, when 
the body is even begun to be understood. Many 
faults originate in ignorance and want of thought. 

Mind and Matter 

Among the material objects we move are the 
parts of our own bodies; indeed, it is through 



76 IMMANENCE 

muscular intervention or agency that we act on 
bodies is general. We know of no other method. 
Even when we speak we are only moving certain 
face and throat and chest muscles, so as to gen- 
erate condensations and rarefactions in the air; 
which, travelling by dynamical properties, excite 
corresponding vibrations or movements in the ear 
drum of our auditor; — vibrations not in themselves 
intelligible, but demanding interpretation from the 
recipient. So also it is with the traces of ink left 
on paper by our muscular action when we write. 
Only to a perceptive eye, and informed and kin- 
dred mind, have they any meaning. 

It is probable that even when we think, some 
special atomic motion goes on in the brain cells, 
though this is an example of unconscious move- 
ment, of which there are many examples in bodily 
function; but directly we begin to attend to mental 
processes we leave the physical region as under- 
stood by us, and enter a more deeply mysterious 
psychical region. Unknown as this is for purposes 
of analysis, from the point of view of experience it 
is more immediately familiar than any other; since 
it is through the activity of mind that every other 
kind of existence is necessarily inferred. Thought 
is our mechanism or instrument of knowledge — 
through it we know everything — but thought is not 
what we directly know. Primarily we think of 
things, not of thought itself. So also sight is our 



IMMANENCE 77 

instrument of seeing — through light we see — but it 
is not light that we perceive, rather it is the objects 
which send it in certain patterns to our eyes. 

Whereas we can act on the external world only 
through our muscles; in ourselves we are aware of 
things belonging to a totally different category, with 
which muscle and movement and energy appear to 
have nothing to do, — -such things as thought, pur- 
pose, desire, humor, affection, consciousness, will. 
These mental faculties seem intimately associated 
with, and are displayed by, our bodily mechanism; 
but in themselves they belong to a different order of 
being, — an order which employs and dominates the 
material, while immersed or immanent in it. Every 
purposed movement is preceded and inspired by 
thought. 

Such reasoned control, by indwelling mind, may 
be undetectable and inconceivable to a low- order of 
intelligence, being totally masked by the material 
garment; and the purpose underlying our activity 
may only be inferred, by such intelligence, with 
as great difficulty as we feel in detecting indwell- 
ing Purpose amid the spontaneous operations of 
Nature. 

Nevertheless, whenever our movements are not 
controlled by thought and intelligent purpose, but 
are left to chance and random impulses, like the 
actions of a man whose reason has been unseated, 
nothing but error and confusion result; — quite a 



78 IMMANENCE 

different state of things from anything we observe 
in the orderly and beautiful procedure of nature. 

It is sometimes said that the operations of nature 
are spontaneous; and that is exactly what they are. 
That is the meaning of immanence. "Spontane- 
ous," used in this sense, does not mean random and 
purposeless and undetermined: it means actuated 
and controlled from within, by something indwell- 
ing and all pervading and not absent anywhere. 
The intelligence which guides things is not some- 
thing external to the scheme, clumsily interfering 
with it by muscular action, as we are constrained to 
do when we interfere at all; but is something within 
and inseparable from it, as human thought is within 
and inseparable from the action of our brains. 

In some partially similar way we conceive that 
the multifarious processes in nature, with neither 
the origin or maintenance of which have we had 
anything to do, must be guided and controlled by 
some Thought and Purpose, immanent in every- 
thing, but revealed only to those with sufficiently 
awakened perceptions. Many are blind to the 
meaning — to the fact even that there is a meaning 
— in nature, just as an animal is usually blind to a 
picture, and always to a poem; but to the higher 
members of our race the Intelligence and Purpose, 
underlying the whole mystery of existence, elabo- 
rating the details of evolution — and ultimately 
tending to elucidate the frequent discords, the 



IMMANENCE 79 

strange humors, and puzzling contradictions of 
life — are keenly felt. To them the lavish beauty 
of wild Nature — of landscape, of sunset, of moun- 
tain, and of sea-^are revelations of an indwelling 
Presence, rejoicing in its majestic order — 

Travra 7r\rjpr) dew v. 

"Earth's crammed with Heaven 
And every common bush afire with God." 

The idea that the world as we know it arose by 
chance and fortuitous concourse of atoms is one 
that no science really sustains, though such an idea 
is the superficial outcome of an incipient recogni- 
tion of the uniformity of nature — a sequel to the 
perception that there is no capricious or spasmod- 
ic interference with the course of events and no 
changes of purpose observable therein — such as we 
are accustomed to in works of human ingenuity and 
skill. We are accustomed to associate will with 
the degenerate form of it called caprice, and to con- 
sider that purpose must be accompanied by changes 
of purpose; so that a steady, uniform, persistent 
course of action is puzzling to us, and wears the 
superficial aspect of mechanism. An omnipresent, 
uniform, immanent Purpose, running through the 
whole of existence without break of continuity or 
change of aim, is beyond our experience; and 9 like 
every other uniformity, is difficult to detect or re- 



80 IMMANENCE 

alize. As an instance of this difficulty, I need only 
cite the long-delayed discovery of an all-embracing 
medium like the terrestrial atmosphere. An intelli- 
gent deep-sea creature would find it most difficult 
to become aware of the existence of water. Simi- 
larly humanity has existed all along in a pervading 
and interpenetrating ether, of which to this day 
men have for the most part no cognizance; although 
it is probably the fundamental substratum of the 
whole material world, underlying every kind of 
activity, and constituting the very atoms of which 
their own bodies are composed. 

Looking at the truths of geometry, the laws of 
nature, and the beauty and organization of the 
visible world, it is as impossible rationally to sup- 
pose that they arose by chance, or by mere conten- 
tious jostling, as it is to suppose that a work of lit- 
erature or a piece of music was composed in that 
way. 

The process of evolution appears to us self- 
sustained and self-guided, because the guidance is 
uniform and constant. 

In nature heredity and survival will explain the 

a persistence of a favorable variation when once 

originated, but the origin or variations is still 

mysterious, and the full meaning of heredity is 

not yet unravelled. 

The struggle for existence has been one of the 
means whereby animal life has been developed and 



IMMANENCE 81 

perfected; but now that it has become conscious 
and purposeful, in humanity, the apparently blind 
struggle is suspended at the higher level, and the 
weak and suffering are attended to and helped — 
not exterminated. Mere struggle and survival is 
an inferior instrument of progress, and it can be 
superseded wherever it has done its necessary pre- 
liminary work. The Divine purpose is fulfilled in 
many ways; and far more can be expected of self- 
conscious evolution than of the long slow process 
which has rendered it possible. 

The kind of selection actually or best known to 
us is that which has been directed by human be- 
ings; and inasmuch as the highest human beings 
are themselves conscious of help and guidance, it 
is to be assumed that such help and guidance has 
been in constant activity all along, operating on, 
or rather in, the refractory materials, so as slowly 
to develop in them the power of manifesting not 
only life and beauty, but also consciousness, spir- 
itual perception, and free will. 



XII 

SOUL AND SPIRIT 

Q. 12. What is to he said of mans higher fac- 
ulties ? 

A. The faculties and achievements of the high- 
est among mankind — in Art, in Science, in Philos- 
ophy, and in Religion — are not explicable as an 
outcome of a struggle for existence. Something 
more than mere life is possessed by us — something 
represented by the words "mind" and "soul" and 
"spirit." On one side we are members of the 
animal kingdom; on another we are associates in 
a loftier type of existence, and are linked with the 
Divine. 



MAN'S HIGHER FACULTIES 83 
CLAUSE XII 

The highest of those who have walked the earth 
reveal to us what we, too, may some day be: they 
link us with the Divine, and teach us that, however 
pathetically defaced by our infirmities and distorted 
by our imperfections, we may yet reflect the image 
of God. 

[Part of the following explanation is based upon 
a study of certain facts not yet fully incorporated 
into orthodox science, nor fully recognized by phi- 
losophy: it must therefore be regarded as specu- 
lation] 

This idea, which permeates literature — that man 
has a spiritual as well as a material origin — empha- 
sizes from another point of view the doctrine of the 
Fall; inasmuch as the utilization of a material 
body, of animal ancestry, exposes the individual to 
much trial and temptation, and makes him aware 
of a contest between the flesh and the spirit, or be- 
tween a lower and a higher self, which constitutes 
the element of truth in the otherwise mistaken 
doctrine of "original," or inherited, or imputed sin. 
Vicarious sin is a legal fiction: so is vicarious pun- 
ishment; vicarious suffering is a reality. The 
mother of a ne'er-do-well knows it: it is undergone 
by the children of vicious parents; the highest souls 
have felt it on behalf of the race of man; but it is 
not artificial or imputed suffering, it is genuine and 



84 SOUL 

real; and experience shows that it can have a re- 
deeming virtue. 

The double nature of man, — the inherited animal 
tendencies, and the inspired spiritual aspirations, — 
if they can both be fully admitted, reconcile many 
difficulties. Our body is an individual collocation 
of cells, which began to form and grow together at 
a certain date, and will presently be dispersed; but 
the constructing and dominating reality, called our 
"soul," did not then begin to exist; nor will it cease 
with bodily decay. Interaction with the material 
world then began, and will then cease, but we 
ourselves in essence are persistent and immortal. 
Even our personality and individuality may be 
persistent, if our character be sufficiently devel- 
oped to possess a reality of its own. In our present 
state, truly, the memory of our past is imperfect 
or non-existent; but when we waken and shake 
off the tenement of matter, our memory and con- 
sciousness may enlarge too, as we rejoin the larger 
self of which only a part is now manifested in 
mortal flesh. 

The ancient doctrine of a previous state of ex- 
istence, of which we are now entranced into forget- 
fulness, is inculcated in the familiar lines — 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar: 



MAN'S HIGHER FACULTIES 85 

Not in entire forgetfulnesss 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home." 

the idea being that the forgetfulness is not complete, 
especially during infancy; nor need it be complete 
in moments of inspiration. Myers' doctrine of the 
subliminal self is an expanded and modified form 
of this idea, and is to a large extent apparently 
justified by a certain range of psychological inquiry: 
though Myers lays stress, not on memory of a past, 
but on a present occasional intercommunication 
between the part and the whole. 

The Platonic doctrine of reminiscence exhibits 
one aspect of the idea of pre-existence, though in a 
necessarily inaccurate and somewhat fanciful form 
— as if infants were a stage higher in the scale than 
grown men; such an idea would involve the old 
mistaken postulate of initial perfection, which was 
made long ago concerning the race: whereas the 
truth was innocency, not perfection. But the idea 
that nothing less than the whole of a personality 
must be incarnated — even in the body of an infant 
— leads to innumerable difficulties; — it does not 
even escape unanswerable questions about trivi- 
alities such as the moment of arrival; and it is 
responsible for much biological scepticism concern- 
ing the existence of any soul at all. Whereas, on 
the strength of the experience that all processes in 



86 SOUL 

nature are really gradual, the idea of gradual incar- 
nation — growing as the brain and body grow, but 
never attaining any approach to completeness even 
in the greatest of men — sets one above innumerable 
petty difficulties, and to me seems an opening in the 
direction of the truth. On this view, the portion of 
larger self incarnated in an infant or a feeble-mind- 
ed person is but small: in normal cases, more ap- 
pears as the body is fitted to receive it. In some 
cases much appears, thus constituting a great man; 
while in others, again, a link of occasional com- 
munication is left open between the part and the 
whole — producing what we call "genius." Second 
childishness is the gradual abandonment of the 
material vehicle, as it gets worn out or damaged. 
But, during the episode of this life, man is never a 
complete self, his roots are in another order of 
being, he is moving about in worlds not realized, 
he is as if walking in a vain shadow and disquieting 
himself in vain. 

It may be objected that our present existence is 
very far from being a dream or trancelike condi- 
tion, that we are very wide awake to the "realities" 
of the world, and very keen about "things of im- 
portance"; that an analogy drawn from the memo- 
ries of hypnotic patients and multiple personalities, 
and other pathological cases, is sure to be mislead- 
ing. It may be so, the idea is admittedly of the 
nature of speculation; but the greatest of poets, in 



MAN'S HIGHER FACULTIES 87 

a specially inspired passage, lends his countenance 
to the notion that phenomena and appearances are 
not ultimate realities, — that our present life is not 
unlike the state of a sleep-walker — that we slept to 
enter it, and that we must sleep again before we 
wake — 

"We are such stuff 

As dreams are made of, and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep." 

As to the question whether we ever again live on 
earth, it appears unlikely on this view that a given 
developed individual will appear again in unmodi- 
fied form. If my present self is a fraction of a 
larger self, some other fraction of that larger self 
may readily be thought of as arriving, — to gain prac- 
tical experience in the world of matter, and to return 
with developed character to the whole whence it 
sprang. And this operation may be repeated fre- 
quently; but these hypothetical fractional appear- 
ances can hardly be spoken of as reincarnations. 
We must not dogmatize, however, on the subject, 
and the case of the multitudes at present thwarted 
and returned at infancy may demand separate 
treatment. It may be that the abortive attempts 
at development on the part of individuals is like 
the w r aves lapping up the sides of a bowlder and 
being successively flung back; while the general 
advance of the race is typified by the steady up- 
rising of the tide, 



\ 



88 SOUL AND BODY 

Soul and Body 

The philosophic doctrine of the "self" on this 
view is a difficult one, and involves much study. 
As here stated, the form is sure to be crude and 
imperfect. Philosophy resents any sharp distinc- 
tion between soul and body — between indwelling 
self and material vehicle, — it prefers to treat the 
self as a whole, an individual unit; though it may 
admit the actual agglomeration of material par- 
ticles to be transient and temporary. The word 
"self" can be used in a narrower or in a broader 
sense : it may signify the actual continuity of per- 
sonality and memory, whereof we are conscious; or 
it may signify a larger and vaguer underlying re- 
ality, of which the conscious self is but a fraction. 
The narrower sense is wide enough, however, to 
include the whole man, both soul and body, as we 
know him; but the phrase "subliminal self" covers 
ideas extending hypothetically beyond that. 

The idea of Redemption or Regeneration, in its 
highest and most Christian form, is applicable to 
both soul and body. The life of Christ shows us 
that the whole man can be regenerated as he stands; 
that we have not to wait for a future state, that the 
Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst and may be 
assimilated by us here and now T . 

The term "salvation" should not be limited to 
the soul, but should apply to the whole man. What 



SALVATION 89 

kind of transfiguration may be possible, or may 
have been possible, in the case of a perfectly emanci- 
pated and glorified body, we do not yet know. 

In a still larger sense these terms apply to the 
whole race of man; and for the salvation of man- 
kind individual loss and suffering have been gladly 
expended. Not the individual alone, but the race 
also, can be adjured to realize some worthy object 
for all its striving, to open its eyes to more glorious 
possibilities than it has yet perceived, to 

". . . climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou 
Look higher, then — perchance — thou mayest — beyond 
A hundred ever-rising mountain lines, 
And past the range of Night and Shadow — see 
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day 
Strike on the Mount of Vision! 






XIII 
GRACE 

Q. 13. Is man helped in his struggle upward? 

A. There is a Power in the Universe vastly be- 
yond our comprehension; and we trust and believe 
that it is a Good and Loving Power, able and will- 
ing to help us and all creatures, and to guide us 
wisely, without detriment to our incipient freedom. 
This Loving-kindness continually surrounds us; in 
it we live and have our real being; it is the main- 
spring of joy and love and beauty, and we call it 
the Grace of God. It sustains and enriches all 
worlds, and may take a multiplicity of forms; but 
it was manifested to dwellers on this planet in the 
life of Jesus Christ, through whose spirit and living 
influence the race of man may hope to rise to 
heights at present inaccessible. 



CHRISTIANITY 91 

CLAUSE XIII 

The guidance exercised by the Divine Spirit, by 
which we are completely surrounded, is not of the 
nature of compulsion; it is only a leading and 
helping influence which we are able to resist if we 
choose. 

The problem of manufacturing free creatures 
with a will of their own, to be led, not forced, into 
right action, is a problem of a different nature 
from any of those that have ever appealed to 
human power and knowledge. What we are ac- 
customed to make is mechanism, of various kinds; 
and the essential difficulty of the higher problem 
is so obscure to us that some impatient and unim- 
aginative persons cry out against its slowness, and 
wonder that everything is not compulsorily made 
perfect at once. But we can see that the kind of 
perfection thus easily attainable would be of an 
utterly inferior kind. 

It is to be supposed that incarnation, or a con- 
nection between consciousness and material mech- 
anism, is auxiliary to the difficult process of 
evolution of free beings, thus indicated; and it is 
probable that matter is thus an instrument of lofty 
spiritual purpose. Some religious systems have 
failed to perceive this, and have depreciated matter 
and flesh as intrinsically evil. 

One important feature of Christianity is that it 



92 GRACE 

recognizes as good the connection between spirit 
and matter, and emphasizes the importance of 
both, when properly regarded. It is not mystical 
and spiritual alone, nor is it material alone; but it 
tends to unify these two extremes and to place in 
due position both soul and body: the material be- 
ing utilized to make manifest the spiritual, and 
being dominated by it. 

The whole idea of the Incarnation, as well as 
some of the miracles and the sacraments, are ex- 
pressive of this wide and comprehensive character 
of the Christian religion. 

It recognizes the wonder and beauty of the 
animal body, destined to be the scene of extraor- 
dinary spiritual triumphs in the long course of 
time; and it teaches 

"That none but Gods could build this house of ours, 
So beautiful, vast, various, so beyond 
All work of man, yet, like all work of man, 
A beauty with defect — till That which knows, 
And is not known, but felt thro' what we feel 
Within ourselves is highest, shall descend 
On this half-deed, and shape it at the last 
According to the Highest in the Highest." 

Christianity is a planetary and human religion: 
being the revelation of those aspects of Godhead 
which are most intelligible and helpful to us in 
our present stage of development. But it is more 
than a revelation, it is a manifestation of some 



INCARNATION 93 

of the attributes of Godhead in the form of 
humanity. 

The statement that Christ and God are one, is 
not really a statement concerning Christ, but a 
statement concerning what we understand by God. 
It is useless, and in the literal sense preposterous, 
to explain the known in terms of the unknown: 
the converse is the right method. "He that hath 
seen Me hath seen the Father." Every son of man 
is potentially also a son of God, but the union was 
deepest and completest in the Galilean. 

The ideas of incarnation and revelation are not 
confined to the domain of religion; they are com- 
mon to music and letters and science: in all we can 
recognize "a flash of the will that can," 

"All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish 
of my soul, 
All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed 
visibly forth." 

The spirit of Beethoven is incarnate in his music; 
and he that hath heard the Fifth Symphony hath 
heard Beethoven. 

The Incarnation of the Divine Spirit in man is 
the central feature of Terrestrial History. It is 
through man, and the highest man, that the revela- 
tion of what is meant by Godhead must necessarily 
come. The world — even the common every-day 
world — has accepted this, and is able to perceive 



94 GRACE 

its appropriateness and truth; and the traditional 
song of the angels, at the epoch of the Birth — 

"Glory to God in the highest, and on 
Earth peace, good will among men," 

is still heard in the land. Whenever there is war 
at Christmas-time it is universally felt to be incon- 
gruous. Good will among men is conspicuous in 
cessation of private feuds, in overladen post-bags, 
in family reunions and Christmas hampers and all 
manner of homely frivolities. 

The Incarnation doctrine is the glorification of 
human effort, and the sanctification of childhood 
and simplicity of life; but it is a pity to reduce it 
to a dogma. It is well to leave something to in- 
tuitive apprehension, and to let the life and death 
of Christ gradually teach their own eloquent lesson 
without premature dogmatic assistance. 

From that event we date our history, and the 
strongest believer in immanent Godhead can admit 
that the life of Jesus was an explicit and clear- 
voiced message of love to this planet from the 
Father of all. Naturally our conception of God- 
head is still only indistinct and partial, but, so far 
as we are as yet able to grasp it, we must reach it 
through recognition of the extent and intricacy of 
the Cosmos, and more particularly through the 
highest type and loftiest spiritual development of 
man himself. 



CHRISTIANITY 95 

The most essential element in Christianity is its 
conception of a human God; of a God, in the first 
place, not apart from the Universe, not outside it 
and distinct from it, but immanent in it; yet not 
immanent only, but actually incarnate, incarnate 
in it and revealed in the Incarnation. The nature 
of God is displayed in part by everything, to those 
who have eyes to see, but is displayed most clearly 
and fully by the highest type of existence, the high- 
est experience to which the process of evolution has 
so far opened our senses. 

"'Tis the sublime of man, 
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves 
Part and proportion of one wondrous whole/' 

The Humanity of God, the Divinity of man, is 
the essence of the Christian revelation. It was 
truly the manifestation of Immanuel. 

The Christian idea of God is not that of a being 
outside the universe, above its struggles and ad- 
vances, looking on and taking no part in the proc- 
ess, solely exalted, beneficent, self-determined, and 
complete; no, it is also that of a God who loves, 
who yearns, who suffers, who keenly laments the 
rebellious and misguided activity of the free agents 
brought into being by Himself as part of Himself, 
who enters into the storm and conflict, and is sub- 
ject to conditions as the soul of it all. 

This is the truth which has been reverberating 



96 GRACE 

down the ages ever since; it has been the hidden 
inspiration of saint, apostle, prophet, martyr, and, 
in however dim and vague a form, has given hope 
and consolation to the unlettered and poverty- 
stricken millions: — A God that could understand, 
that could suffer, that could sympathize, that had 
felt the extremity of human anguish, the agony of 
bereavement, had submitted even to the brutal 
hopeless torture of the innocent, and had become 
acquainted with the pangs of death — this has been 
the chief consolation of the Christian religion. 
This is the extraordinary conception of Godhead 
to which we have thus far risen. "This is My 
beloved Son." 

"Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it 
by-and-by." The Christian God is revealed as the 
incarnate Spirit of humanity; or rather the incar- 
nate spirit of humanity is recognized as a real 
intrinsic part of God. "The Kingdom of Heaven 
is within you." 



XIV 
INSPIRATION 

Q. 14. How may we become informed concerning 
things too high for our own knowledge? 

A. We should strive to learn from the great 
teachers, the prophets and poets and saints of the 
human race, and should seek to know and to 
interpret their inspired writings. 



THE TRUTH OF INSPIRATION 99 
CLAUSE XIV 

People at a low stage of development are liable to 
think that they can arrive at truth by their unaided 
judgment and insight, and that they need not con- 
cern themselves with the thoughts and experiences 
of the past. Unconscious of any inspiration them- 
selves, they decline to believe in the possibility of 
such a thing, and regard it as a fanciful notion of 
unpractical and dreamy people 

Great men, on the other hand, are the finger- 
posts and loadstars of humanity; it is with their 
aid that we steer our course, if we are wise, and the 
records of their thought and inspiration are of the 
utmost value to us. 

This is the meaning of literature in general, and 
of that mass of ancient religious literature in par- 
ticular, on which hundreds of scholars have be- 
stowed their best energies; now translated, bound 
together, and handed down to us as the Canon of 
Scripture, — of which some portions are the most 
inspired writings yet achieved by humanity. It is 
impossible for us to ignore the concurrent mass of 
human testimony therein recorded, the substantial 
and general truth of which has been vouched for 
by the prophets and poets and seers of all time; 
and accordingly, if we are to form worthy beliefs 
regarding the highest conceptions in the Universe, 
we must avail ourselves of all this testimony — dis- 

LOFC. 






ioo INSPIRATION 

criminating and estimating its relative value in the 
light of our own judgment and experience, study- 
ing such works and criticism as are accessible to 
us, asking for the guidance of the Divine Spirit, 
and seeking with modest and careful patience to 
apprehend something in the direction of the truth. 



XV 

A CREED 

Q. 15. What, then, do you reverently believe can 
be deduced from a study of the records and traditions 
of the past in the light of the present? 

A. I believe in one Infinite and Eternal Being, 
a guiding and loving Father, in whom all things 
consist. 

I believe that the Divine Nature is specially re- 
vealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord, who 
lived and taught and suffered in Palestine nineteen 
hundred years ago, and has since been worshipped 
by the Christian Church as the immortal Son of 
God, the Saviour of the world. 

I believe that the Holy Spirit is ever ready to help 
us along the Way towards Goodness and Truth; 
that prayer is a means of communion between man 
and God; and that it is our privilege through faith- 
ful service to enter into the Life Eternal, the Com- 
munion of Saints, and the Peace of God. 



BELIEF 103 

CLAUSE XV 
Notes on the Creed 

The three paragraphs correspond to the three 
aspects or personifications of Deity which have 
most impressed mankind, — 

The Creating and Sustaining. 

The Sympathizing and Suffering. 

The Regenerating and Sanctifying. 

The first of the three clauses tries to indicate 
briefly the cosmic as well as the more humanly 
intelligible attributes of Deity, and to suggest an 
idea of creation appropriate to the doctrine of 
Divine Immanence, as opposed to the anthropo- 
morphic notion of manufacture. The idea of 
evolution by guiding and controlling Purpose is 
suggested, as well as the vital conception of Father- 
ly Love. 

In the second paragraph, Time and Place are 
explicitly mentioned in order to emphasize the his- 
torical and human aspect of the Christian mani- 
festation of Immanuel. This aspect is essential 
and easy to appreciate, though its idealization and 
full interpretation are difficult. The step from the 
bare historic facts to the idealization of the Fourth 
Gospel has been the work of the Church, in the 
best sense of that word, aided by the doctrines of 



104 BELIEF 

the Logos and of Immanence, elaborated by Philos- 
ophy. It all hangs together when properly grasp- 
ed, and constitutes a luminous conception; but the 
light thus shed upon the nature of Deity must not 
blind our eyes to the simple human facts from 
which it originally emanated. The clear and un- 
doubted fact is that the founder of the Christian 
religion lived on this earth a blameless life, taught 
and helped the poor who heard him gladly, gath- 
ered to himself a body of disciples with whom he 
left a message to mankind, and was tortured to 
death as a criminal blasphemer, at the instigation 
of mistaken priests in the defence of their own 
Order and privileges. 

This monstrous wrong is regarded by some as 
having unconsciously completed the salvation of 
the race; because of the consummation of sacri- 
fice, and because of the suffering of the innocent, 
which it involved. The Jewish sacrificial system, 
and the priestly ceremony of the scapegoat, seem 
to lead up to that idea, — which was elaborated by 
St. Paul with immense genius, and taught by St. 
Augustine. 

Others attach more saving efficacy to the life, the 
example, and the teachings, as recorded in the Gos- 
pels; and all agree that they are important. 

But in fact the whole is important: and at the 
foot of the Cross there has been a perennial expe- 
rience of relief and renovation. Sin being the 



ATONEMENT 105 

sense of imperfection, disunion, lack of harmony, 
the struggle among the members that St. Paul for 
all time expressed; — there is usually associated 
with it a sense of impotence, a recognition of the 
impossibility of achieving peace and unity in one's 
own person, a feeling that aid must be forthcoming 
from a higher source. It is this feeling which 
enables the spectacle of any noble self-sacrificing 
human action to have an elevating effect, it is this 
which gropes after the possibilities of the highest 
in human nature, it is a feeling which for large 
tracts of this planet has found its highest stimulus 
and completest satisfaction in the life and death of 
Christ. 

The willingness of such a Being to share our 
nature, to live the life of a peasant, and to face the 
horrible certainty of execution by torture, in order 
personally to help those whom he was pleased to 
call his brethren, is a race-asset which, however 
masked and overlaid with foreign growths, yet 
gleams through every covering and suffuses the 
details of common life with fragrance. 

This conspicuously has been a redeeming, or 
rather a regenerating, agency;— for by filling the 
soul with love and adoration and fellow-feeling for 
the Highest, the old cravings have often been al- 
most hypnotically rendered distasteful and repel- 
lent, the bondage of sin has been loosened from 
many a spirit, the lower entangled self has been 



106 BELIEF 

helped from the slough of despond, and raised to 
the shores of a larger hope, whence it can gradually 
attain to harmony and peace. 

The invitation to the troubled soul — "Come, and 
find rest" — has reference, not to relief from sin 
alone, but to all restlessness and lack of trust. The 
Atonement removes the feeling of dislocation; it 
induces a tranquil sense of security and harmony, — 
an assurance of union with the Divine will. 

Every form of Christianity aims at salvation for 
the race and for each individual, both soul and 
body; but different versions differ as to the means 
most efficient to this end. Varieties of Christianity 
can be grouped under the symbolic names, Paul, 
James, Peter, and John; with the dominating ideas 
of vicarious sacrifice, human effort, Church ordi- 
nance, and loving kindness, respectively. 

In the coldest system of nomenclature these four 
chief varieties may be styled, legal, ethical, ecclesi- 
astical, and emotional, respectively. More favora- 
bly regarded, the dominating ideas may be classi- 
fied thus: — 

1. Faith in a divine scheme of redemption. 

2. Simple life, social service, honesty, and virtue. 

3. Spiritual sustenance by utilization of means 
of grace. 

4. Obedience, unworldliness, trust, and love. 
With the treatment of these great themes, sec- 
tarian differences begin: differences which seem 



BELIEF 107 

beyond our power to reconcile. We need not 
dwell on the differences, we would rather empha- 
size the mass of agreement. Probably there is an 
element of truth in every view that has long been 
held and found helpful by human beings, however 
overlaid with superstition it may in some cases have 
become; and probably also the truth is far from 
exhausted by any one estimate of the essential 
feature of a Life which most of us can agree to 
recognize as a revelation of the high-water-mark of 
manhood, and a manifestation of the human attri- 
butes of God. 

None of the above partially overlapping subdivi- 
sions of Christianity equal in importance the over- 
shadowing and dominating theory emphasized in 
the above creed: namely, the idea of a veritable 
incarnation of Divine Spirit — a visible manifesta- 
tion of Deity immanent in humanity. The facts 
of the life, testified to by witnesses and idealized by 
philosophers and saints, have been transmitted 
down the centuries by a continuous Church — 
though with a mingling of superstition and error. 

At present the process of interpretation has been 
accompanied by a sad amount of discord and hos- 
tility, to the scandal of the Church; but the future 
of religion shall not always be endangered by suspi- 
cion and intolerance and narrowness among pro- 
fessed disciples of truth. There must come a time 
when first a nation, and afterwards the civilized 



108 BELIEF 

world, shall awake and glory in the light of the 
risen sun: — 

" — A sun but dimly seen 
Here, till the mortal morning mists of earth 
Fade in the noon of heaven, when creed and race 
Shall bear false witness, each of each, no more, 
But find their limits by that larger light, 
And overstep them, moving easily 
Thro' after-ages in the love of Truth, 
The truth of Love." 

The emphasis herein laid on the conception of 
the human nature incorporated into Godhead, is 
appropriate to this country and to the Western 
World generally; but we thereby imply no abuse of 
the religions of the East, in their proper place, any 
more than of the religions of other planets. Silence 
concerning them is not disrespectful. It is not to 
be supposed that any one world has a monopoly of 
the Grace of God; nor does it exhaust every plan 
of salvation. In estimating the value of another 
dispensation, or of any ill-understood religion (and 
no one can perfectly understand and appreciate 
more than one religion, if that, to the full), the old 
test is the only valid one: Do men gather grapes of 
thorns or figs of thistles ? 

The third paragraph speaks of our progress 
along the Way of Truth to goodness and beauty of 
Life, and of the assistance constantly vouchsafed to 



BELIEF 109 

our own efforts in that direction. It is not by our 
own efforts alone that we can succeed, for we can- 
not tell what lies before us, and we lack wisdom to 
foresee the consequences of alternative courses of 
action, — one of which nevertheless we instinctively 
feel to be right. Acts of self-will, and fanatical de- 
termination, and impatience, may operate in the 
wrong direction altogether; and effort so expended 
may be worse than wasted: but if we submit our- 
selves wholly to a beneficent Power, and seek not 
our own ends but the ends of the Guiding Spirit of 
all things, we shall obtain peace in ourselves, and 
may hope to be used for purposes beyond what we 
can ask or think. This kind of service is what, in 
its several degrees, will be recognized by the Master 
as "faithful"; and it is by being faithful in a few 
things that hereafter we shall be found worthy of 
many things, and shall enter into the joy of our 
Lord. 

By the Holy Spirit is meant the living and imma- 
nent Deity at work in the consciousness and expe- 
rience of mankind, — the guider of human history, 
the comforter of human sorrow, the revealer of 
truth, the inspirer of faith and hope and love, the 
producer of life and joy and beauty, the sustainer 
and enricher of existence, the Impersonation of the 
Grace of God. 

This mighty theme has been treated, in an initial 
manner, in connection with Clause XIII. 



no BELIEF 

Supplementary questions will be asked concern- 
ing other terms in the third paragraph; but as to 
the phrase with which the Creed concludes — the 
Peace of God — its meaning, we are well assured, 
surpasses understanding, and can be felt only by 
experience; hence no supplementary question is 
asked concerning that phrase. 




XVI 
THE LIFE ETERNAL 

Q. 1 6. What do you mean by the Life Eternal? 

A. I mean that whereas our terrestrial existence 
is temporary, our real existence continues without 
ceasing, in either a higher or a lower form, accord- 
ing to our use of opportunities and means of grace; 
and that the fulness of Life ultimately attainable 
represents a growing perfection at present incon- 
ceivable by us. 



CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE 113 
CLAUSE XVI 

Continuity of existence, without break or inter- 
ruption, is the fundamental idea that needs incul- 
cation, not only among children but among ig- 
norant people generally; and the survival, from 
savage times, of an inclination to associate a full 
measure of departed personality with the discarded 
and decomposing bodily remnant, — under the im- 
pression that it will awake and live again at some 
future day, — should be steadily discouraged. The 
idea of bodily resurrection, in this physical sense, 
is responsible for much superstition and for some 
ecclesiastical abuses. 

A nearer approach to the truth may be expressed 
thus: — 

Terrestrial existence is dependent for its con- 
tinuance on a certain arrangement of material 
particles belonging to the earth, which are gradual- 
ly collected and built up into the complex and 
constantly changing structure called a body. The 
correspondence or connection between matter and 
spirit, as thus exhibited, is common to every form 
of life in some degree, and is probably a symbol or 
sample of something permanently true; so that a 
double aspect of every fundamental existence is like- 
ly always to continue. But identity of person in no 
way depends upon identity of particles: the particles 
are frequently changed and the old ones discarded. 



ii4 IMMORTALITY 

The term "body" should be explained and 
emphasized, as connoting anything which is able 
to manifest feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and 
at the same time to operate efficiently on its en- 
vironment. The temporary character of the pres- 
ent human body should be admitted for purposes 
of religion; it usefully and truthfully displays the 
incarnate part of us during the brief episode of 
terrestrial life, and when it has served its turn it is 
left behind: its particles being discarded and dis- 
persed. Hereafter — we are taught — an equally 
efficient vehicle of manifestation, similarly appro- 
priate to our new environment, will not be lacking; 
this at present unknown and hypothetical entity is 
spoken of as "a spiritual body," and represents 
the serious idea underlying crude popular notions 
about bodily resurrection. 

Our bodies have been likened to ripples raised 
by wind upon water, displaying in visible form the 
motion and influence of the operating breath, with- 
out being permanently differentiated from the vast 
whole, of which the ripple is a temporarily indi- 
vidualized portion: individualized, yet not isolated 
from others, but connected with them by the ocean, 
of whose immensity they may be supposed for 
poetic purposes gradually to become aware: — 

"But that one ripple on the boundless deep 
Feels that the deep is boundless, and itself 



CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE 115 

Forever changing form, but evermore 

One with the boundless motion of the deep." 

There is much to be said for some form of doc- 
trine of a common psychological basis or union of 
minds — some kind of Anima Mundi, some World- 
Mind, of which we are all fragments, and to which 
all knowledge is in a manner accessible; but the 
analogy of ocean ripples or icebergs need not be 
pressed to support the idea of a cessation of indi- 
vidual existence, when a given ripple or a given 
iceberg subsides. All analogies fail at some point. 
The ocean analogy happens to suggest indistin- 
guishable absorption or Nirvana, but others do not. 
The parts of a jelly are linked together and vibrate 
as a whole, but each little sac of fluid is partitioned 
off as an individual entity; in touch with all the 
rest, but with a texture and a color of its own. 

Continued personality, persistent individual ex- 
istence, cannot be predicated of things which do 
not possess personality or individuality or char- 
acter: but, to things which do possess these attri- 
butes, continuity and persistence not only may, but 
must, apply; unless we are to suppose that actual 
existence suddenly ceases. There must be a con- - 
servation of character, notwithstanding the admit- 
ted return of the individual to a central store or 
larger self, — from which a portion was differen- 
tiated and individualized for the brief period during 



n6 IMMORTALITY 

which the planet performs some seventy of its in- 
numerable journeys round the sun. Absorption 
in original source may mask, but need not destroy, 
identity. 

Even so a villager, picked out as a recruit and 
sent to the seat of war, may serve his country, may 
gain experience, acquire a soul and a width of 
horizon such as he had not dreamt of; and when 
he returns, after the war is over, may be merged as 
before in his native village. But the village is the 
richer for his presence, and his individuality or 
personality is not really lost; though to the eye of 
the world, which has no further need for it, it has 
practically ceased to be. 

The character and experience gained by us dur- 
ing our brief association with the matter of this 
planet, become our possession henceforth forever. 
We cannot shake ourselves free of them, even if we 
would: the enlargement of ideas, the growth in 
knowledge, the acquisition of friendships, the skill 
and power and serviceableness attained by us 
through this strange experience of incarnation, all 
persist as part and parcel of our larger self; and so 
do the memories of failure, of shame, of cruelty, of 
sin, which we have acquired here. To glory in 
these last things is damnation: the best that they 
can bring to us is pain and undying remorse — their 
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. There 
is no way out, save by the way of mercy and grace; 



CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE 117 

whereby we are assured that at last, in the long last, 
we may ultimately attain to pardon and peace. 

The class of things which is certainly not per- 
sistent, but must indubitably be left behind us for- 
ever, is the weird collection of treasures for which 
most of us work so hard, scorning delights and 
living laborious days for their acquisition. 

In this blind and mistaken struggle — a struggle 
which in the present condition of society seems so 
unavoidable, even so meritorious, but which in a 
reformed society will be looked back upon as at 
something hard to understand — we do not even 
make to ourselves friends of the mammon of un- 
righteousness. Its mottoes are "each for himself" 
and " vae victis." Fortunately very few of the hu- 
man race wholly succumb to this temptation, nearly 
all reserve great regions of their lives where kind- 
ness and friendliness and affection reign, and they 
try to check the evil results of their worser or self- 
directed efforts by charitable doles. 

In a more ideal state of society there would be no 
need either of the poison or of its antidote. 

To bring about such an ideal state of society is 
the end and aim of Politics, and of all movements 
for social reform. Efforts in these directions are 
the most serious things in life, and may be the 
most fruitful in vital results: since few individuals 
are strong enough to withstand the pressure and 
tendency of their social surroundings; only a few 



u8 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 



can rise superior to them, only a few sink far 
beneath them; the majority drift with the crowd 
and become — too many at present — irretrievably 
injured by the base and ugly conditions among 
which their lives are cast. 

At present, for the majority of Englishmen, life 
is liable to be damaging and deleterious: initial 
weakness of character, so far from being strength- 
ened and helped by the combined force of society, 
is hindered and enfeebled thereby, — a disastrous 
and disquieting condition of things. But when the 
efforts of self-sacrificing and laborious statesmen, 
Ministers in the highest sense (Mark x. 43), — when 
these efforts at cultivation bear fruit, — then, not- 
withstanding individual lapses here and there, so- 
ciety at large will be indistinguishable from a hu- 
man branch of the Communion of Saints. Then 
will feeble impulses towards virtue be fostered, 
cultivated, and encouraged; the bruised reed will 
no longer be broken and trampled in the mire. 

The Life Eternal in its fullest sense must be 
entered upon here and now. The emphasis is on 
the word Life, without reference to time. "I am 
come that ye might have Life." Life of a far 
higher kind than any yet we know is attainable 
by the human race on this planet. It rests largely 
with ourselves. The outlook was never brighter 
than it is to-day; many workers and thinkers are 
making ready the way for a Second Advent, — a 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 119 

reincarnation of the Logos in the heart of all men; 
the heralds are already preparing their songs for a 
reign of brotherly love; already there are "signs 
of his coming and sounds of his feet"; and upon 
our terrestrial activity the date of this Advent 
depends. 



XVII 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 

Q. 17. What is the significance of the "Com- 
munion of Saints"? 

A. Higher and holier beings must possess, in 
fuller fruition, those privileges of communion which 
are already foreshadowed by our own faculties of 
language, of sympathy, and of mutual aid; and as 
we find that man's power of friendly help is not 
confined to his fellows, but extends to other ani- 
mals, so may we conceive ourselves part of a mighty 
Fellowship of love and service. 



FELLOWSHIP 121 

CLAUSE XVII 

Here is opened up a great subject on which much 
remains to be discovered. It is probable that the 
action of the Deity throughout the Universe is al- 
ways conducted through intermediaries and agents. 
In all cases that we can examine, it is so; and this 
is one of the many meanings of "Immanence." 

Humanity is the most prominent to us, among 
divine agencies, and though it is probably only an 
infinitesimal fraction of the whole, yet it can be 
studied as a sample. Experience shows us that 
human beings have feelings of sympathy, pity, and 
love, and can be moved to act in certain ways by 
persistent urging and by definite requests. There 
is no reason to suppose that this faculty of hearing 
and answering is limited to our own comparatively 
lowly stage of existence. Man may be regarded as 
a germ or indication of far more powerful agencies, 
of which at present we know very little. 

The faculty of communion familiarly possessed 
by man is not likely to be exhaustive of all possible 
methods of mental and spiritual intercourse; and 
in the undeveloped power of telepathy we have an 
indication of a mode apparently not dependent on 
the machinery of physical processes, and not neces- 
sarily limited to intelligencies inhabiting the surface 
of a planet. Why associate mind only with the 
surface of a mass of matter ? People hope some 



122 THE CHURCH INVISIBLE 

day to be able to communicate with people on 
Mars, but there may be intelligencies far more 
accessible to us than those remote and hypothetical 
denizens of another world. The immanent Spirit 
of nature is likely to individualize and personify it- 
self in ways mysterious and unknown: all manner 
of possibilities lie open to our study and examina- 
tion; and — until we have scrutinized the evidence, 
and thought long and deeply on the subject — our 
negative opinion, based upon long habit and tradi- 
tion, must not be allowed undue weight. It must 
be remembered that the above is speculation, not 
knowledge; yet something like it has received the 
sanction of great philosophers. Here is an ex- 
clamation of Hegel: — 

"We do not mean to be behind; our watchword 
shall be Reason and Freedom, and our rallying 
ground the Invisible Church." 

So far our eyes are open to perceive only the 
assiduous operations of man; and any supposed 
influence of other agencies we regard with suspi- 
cion and mistrust. Some are inclined to think that 
man is solitary in the universe, the highest of cre- 
ated things; without equal, without superior, with- 
out companionship; alone with his indomitable 
soul amid scenes of unspeakable grandeur and awe; 
alone with his brethren in a universe wherein no 
spark of feeling, no gleam of intelligence can 
be aroused by his unuttered longings — no echo 



COMMUNION OF SAINTS 123 

of sympathy can respond to his bewildered 
need. 

Yet that is not the feeling which arises during 
spells of lonely communion with nature — on rock 
or sea or trackless waste. At these moments comes 
a sense of Presence, such as Wordsworth felt at 
Tintern, or Byron when he wrote : 

"Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone/* 

Until our senses are opened more widely, scepti- 
cism concerning spiritual beings, as intermediate 
links with absolute Deity, may be our safest atti- 
tude, for ignorance is better than superstition; but 
the seers of the human race have surmised that as 
denizens of a higher universe we are far from 
lonely, that it is only our limited perception that is 
at fault, and that to clearer eyes the whole of nature 
is transfused with spirit : v ^v^v ?& oXm fMifityrdt, 

c< Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." 



XVIII 
MYSTIC COMMUNION OR PRAYER 

Q. 1 8. What do you understand by prayer? 

A. I understand that when our spirits are at- 
tuned to the Spirit of Righteousness, our hopes and 
aspirations exert an influence far beyond their con- 
scious range, and in a true sense bring us into com- 
munion with our Heavenly Father. This power of 
filial communion is called prayer; it is an attitude 
of mingled worship and supplication; we offer 
petitions in a spirit of trust and submission, and 
endeavor to realize the Divine attributes, with the 
help and example of Christ. 



PRAYER 125 

CLAUSE XVIII 

In prayer we come into close communion with a 
Higher than we know, and seek to contemplate 
Divine perfection. -Its climax and consummation 
is attained when we realize the universal Perme- 
ance, the entire Goodness, and the Fatherly Love, 
of the Divine Being. Through prayer we admit 
our dependence on a higher power, for existence 
and health and everything we possess; we are 
encouraged to ask for whatever we need, as chil- 
dren ask parents; and we inevitably cry for mercy 
and comfort in times of tribulation and anguish. 

The spirit of simple supplication may desire 
chiefly — 

1. Insight and receptiveness to truth and knowl- 
edge. 

2. Help and guidance in the practical manage- 
ment of life. 

3. Ability and willingness to follow the light 
whithersoever it leads. 

But provided we ask in a right spirit, it is not 
necessary to be specially careful concerning the 
kind of things asked for; nor need we in all cases 
attempt to decide how far their attainment is pos- 
sible or not. In such matters we may admit our 
ignorance. What is important is that we should 
apply our own efforts towards the fulfilment of our 
petition, and not be satisfied with wishes alone. 



126 PRAYER 

Everything accomplished has to be done by actual 
work and activity of some kind, and it is unreason- 
able to expect the rest of the universe to take 
trouble on our behalf while we ourselves are supine. 
Certain material means are within our control: 
these should be fully employed, in the light of the 
best knowledge of the time. 

The highest type of prayer has for its object not 
any material benefit, beyond those necessary for 
our activity and usefulness, but the enlightenment 
and amendment of our wills, the elevation of all 
humanity, and the coming of the Kingdom. 



XIX 
THE LORD'S PRAYER 

Q. Rehearse the prayer taught us by Jesus. 

A. Our Father, which art in heaven, 

Hallowed be Thy Name. 

Thy kingdom come. 

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in 

HEAVEN. 

Give us this day our daily bread. 

And forgive us our trespasses, as we for- 
give them that trespass against us. 

And lead us not into temptation; but 
deliver us from evil! 

For Thine is the kingdom, 

And the power, 

And the glory, 

For ever. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER 129 

CLAUSE XIX 

Q. 19. Explain the purport of this prayer. 

A. We first attune our spirit to consciousness of 
the Divine Fatherhood; trying to realize His in- 
finite holiness as well as His loving-kindness, desir- 
ing that everything alien to His will should cease in 
our hearts and in the world, and longing for the 
establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. Then 
we ask for the supply of the ordinary needs of ex- 
istence, and for the forgiveness of our sins and 
shortcomings just as we pardon those who have 
hurt us. We pray to be kept from evil influences, 
and to be protected when they attack us. Finally, 
we repose in the might, majesty, and dominion of 
the Eternal Goodness. 



XX 

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

Q. 20. What is meant by the Kingdom of 
Heaven ? 

A. The Kingdom of Heaven is the central feat- 
ure of practical Christianity. It represents a har- 
monious condition in which the Divine Will is 
perfectly obeyed; it signifies the highest state of 
existence, both individual and social, which we can 
conceive. Our whole effort should, directlv or in- 
directly, make ready its way, — in our hearts, in our 
lives, and in the lives of others. It is the ideal state 
of society towards which Reformers are striving; 
it is the ideal of conscious existence towards which 
Saints aim. 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 131 
CLAUSE XX 

This mighty ideal has many aspects. It has 
been typified as the pearl of great price, for which 
all other property may well be sacrificed: in germ 
it is as leaven, or as growing seed. It will come 
sooner than is expected, — though for a time longer 
there must be tares among the wheat: for a time 
longer there shall be last and first, and a striving 
to be greatest, and a laying up of earthly treasure, 
and wars and divisions; but only for a time, — the 
spirit of service is growing, and the childlike spirit 
will overcome: 

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's 
good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." 

When realized it will conduce to universal love 
and brotherhood; it is the reign of Christ's spirit 
in the hearts of all men; it is accordingly spoken 
of as the second Advent, and its herald song is still, 
Peace on earth, good-will among men. Wherever 
perfect love and willing service exist, there alreadv 
is the Kingdom. 

We have to realize that the Will of God is to be 
done on earth, that the Kingdom of Heaven is to 
be a present Kingdom, here and now, not relegated 
always to the future. Our life is not in the future, 
but in the present, and it will always be in the pres- 
ent: it is in our life that we have to apply our be- 
liefs, utilize our talents, and bring forth fruit. The 



132 REGENERATION 

Kingdom of Heaven is not only at hand, it is 
potentially in our midst and may be actually within 
us. These are its two chief aspects, the social, and 
the individual. The ideal is to be made real, in 
each and in all: nothing is too good to be true: 
each soul is to attain its highest aim : the world is 
to be transfigured and transformed. 

The above formula must not be supposed to 
exhaust the meaning of the great Phrase, which 
many parables have still only partially explained, 
but it is a part of its meaning. And the strange 
thing is that the world, in spite of its violent unrest, 
wrestling and contending amid unheeded calls to 
order, is really working towards that goal. No 
other ending is possible in the long run, though 
it has been long delayed. It is the condition to 
which the whole of humanity, each individual man, 
as well as the race, is blindly and unconsciously 
struggling. 

"Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts 
All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
Their error, upward tending all, though weak, 
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
But dream of him and guess where he may be. 
And do their best to climb and get to him." 

The daily toil, in city office, in factory, in ship, 
in mine, in home, is really a struggle for Life, for 
freedom, for joy, for something wider and better 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 133 

than we at present know, for pleasures that satisfy 
and do not pall. We needs must love the highest 
when we see it; but as yet we do not see it: so we 
are working in the dark, and the best of us try hard 
to do our duty. The end is unrecognized, the 
means may be mistaken, but the energy is there; 
and the race as well as the individual is instinctively 
working out its destiny; — thwarting itself constant- 
ly by misdirected endeavor, yet constantly striving 
for self-development and enlargement, for progress 
and happiness. And this is true even when the 
main idea of enlargement is the amassing of money 
in unwieldy heaps, when happiness is sought in an 
exaltation of imagination by deleterious drugs, or 
when progress is thought to consist in the slaughter 
and impoverishment of opponents who might be 
our auxiliaries and allies. 

If our vision should be cleared, and the aim of 
human effort could be changed, the earth w r ould 
put on a new complexion; we should no longer be 
tempted to think of humanity as of an ancient and 
effete and played-out product of evolution, — we the 
latest-born and most youthful of all the creatures 
on the planet, — but should regard everything with 
the eye of hope, as of one new-born, with senses 
quickened to perceive joys and beauties hitherto 
undreamed of. 

That is the meaning of Regeneration or new 
birth : it must be like an awakening out of trance. 



134 REGENERATION 

At present we are as if subject to a dream illusion, 
in a slumber which we are unable to throw off. 
Revelation after revelation has come to us, but our 
senses are deadened and we will not hear, our hands 
are full of clay, we have no grasp for ideals, we are 
mistaking appearance for reality. But the time for 
awakening must be drawing nigh — the time when 
again it may be said: "The people that walked in 
darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in 
the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath 
the light shined." 

Meanwhile our seers depict man's half-hoping 
half-despairing attitude, not so much as a striving, 
as awaiting: — the striving is obvious, but the un- 
conscious waiting is what they detect — waiting as it 
were for the arrival of a new sense, a new percep- 
tion of the value of life : — 

"And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet 
No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore 
Await the last and largest sense to make 
The phantom walls of this illusion fade, 
And show us that the world is wholly fair." 



THE CLAUSES OF THE CATECHISM 
REPEATED 



THE CATECHISM 

Q. I. What are you? 

A. I am a being alive and conscious upon this 
earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by 
gradual processes from lower forms of animal life, 
and with struggle and suffering became man. 

Q. 2. What, then, may be meant by the Fall of 
man? 

A. At a certain stage of development man be- 
came conscious of a difference between right and 
wrong, so that thereafter, when his actions fell 
below a normal standard of conduct, he felt 
ashamed and sinful. He thus lost his animal 
innocency, and entered on a long period of human 
effort and failure; nevertheless, the consciousness 
of degradation marked a rise in the scale of exist- 
ence. 

Q. 3. What is the distinctive characteristic of 
manhood? 

A. The distinctive character of man is that he 
has a sense of responsibility for his acts, having 



138 THE CATECHISM 

acquired the power of choosing between good and 
evil, with freedom to obey one motive rather than 
another. Creatures far below the human level are 
irresponsible; they feel no shame and suffer no 
remorse; they are said to have no conscience. 

Q. 4. What is the duty of man? 

A. To assist his fellows, to develop his own 
higher self, to strive towards good in every way 
open to his powers, and generally to seek to know 
the laws of Nature and to obey the will of God, in 
whose service alone can be found that harmonious 
exercise of the faculties which is synonymous with 
perfect freedom. 

Q. 5. What is meant by good and evil? 

A. Good is that which promotes development, 
and is in harmony with the will of God. It is akin 
to health and beauty and happiness. 

Evil is that which retards or frustrates develop- 
ment, and injures some part of the universe. It is 
akin to disease and ugliness and misery. 

Q. 6. How does man know good from evil? 

A. His own nature, when uncorrupted by greed, 
is sufficiently in tune with the universe to enable 
him to be well aware in general of what is a help or 
hinderance to the guiding Spirit, of which he him- 
self is a real and effective portion. 



THE CATECHISM 139 

Q. 7. How comes it that evil exists ? 

A. Evil is not an absolute thing, but has refer- 
ence to a standard of attainment. The possibility 
of evil is the necessary consequence of a rise in the 
scale of moral existence; just as an organism whose 
normal temperature is far above "absolute zero" 
is necessarily liable to damaging and deadly cold. 
But cold is not in itself a positive or created thing. 

Q. 8. What is sin? 

A. Sin is the deliberate and wilful act of a free 
agent who sees the better and chooses the worse, 
and thereby acts injuriously to himself and others. 
The root sin is selfishness, whereby needless trouble 
and pain are inflicted on others; when fully de- 
veloped it involves moral suicide. 

Q. 9. Are there beings lower in the scale of exist- 
ence than man ? 

A, Yes, multitudes. In every part of the earth 
where life is possible, there we find it developed. 
Life exists in every variety of animal, in earth and 
air and sea, and in every species of plant. 

Q. 10. Are there any beings higher in the scale of 
existence than man ? 

A. Man is the highest of the dwellers on the 
planet earth, but the earth is only one of many 
planets warmed by the sun, and the sun is only one 



HO THE CATECHISM 

of a myriad of similar suns, which are so far off 
that we barely see them, and group them indis- 
criminately as " stars. " We may reasonably con- 
jecture that in some of the innumerable worlds 
circling round those distant suns there must be 
beings far higher in the scale of existence than 
ourselves; indeed, we have no knowledge which 
enables us to assert the absence of intelligence 
anywhere. 

Q. II. What caused and what maintains exist- 
ence? 

A. Of our own knowledge we are unable to 
realize the meaning of origination or of mainte- 
nance; all that we ourselves can accomplish in the 
physical world is to move things into desired posi- 
tions, and leave them to act on each other. Nev- 
ertheless our effective movements are all inspired by 
thought, and so we conceive that there must be 
some Intelligence immanent in all the processes of 
nature, for they are not random or purposeless, but 
organized and beautiful. 



■ &* 



Q. 12. What is to be said of mans higher fac- 
ulties ? 

A. The faculties and achievements of the highest 
among mankind — in Art, in Science, in Philosophy, 
and in Religion — are not explicable as an outcome 
of a struggle for existence. Something more than 



THE CATECHISM 141 

mere life is possessed by us — something represented 
by the words "mind" and "soul" and "spirit." 
On one side we are members of the animal king- 
dom; on another we are associates in a loftier type 
of existence, and are linked with the Divine. 

Q. 13. Is man helped in his struggle upward? 

A. There is a Power in the Universe vastly be- 
yond our comprehension; and we trust and believe 
that it is a Good and Loving Power, able and will- 
ing to help us and all creatures, and to guide us 
wisely, without detriment to our incipient freedom. 
This Loving-kindness continually surrounds us; in 
it we live and have our real being; it is the main- 
spring of joy and love and beauty, and we call it 
the Grace of God. It sustains and enriches all 
worlds, and may take a multiplicity of forms; but 
it was manifested to dwellers on this planet in the 
Life of Jesus Christ, through whose spirit and liv- 
ing influence the race of man may hope to rise to 
heights at present inaccessible. 

Q. 14. How may we become informed concerning 
things too high for our own knowledge? 

A. We should strive to learn from the great 
teachers, the prophets and poets and saints of the 
human race, and should seek to know and to inter- 
pret their inspired writings. 



142 THE CATECHISM 

Q. 15. What, then j do you reverently believe can 
be deduced from a study of the records and traditions 
of the past in the light of the present? 

A, I believe in one Infinite and Eternal Being, 
a guiding and loving Father, in whom all things 
consist. 

I believe that the Divine Nature is specially re- 
vealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord, who 
lived and taught and suffered in Palestine nineteen 
hundred years ago, and has since been worshipped 
by the Christian Church as the immortal Son of 
God, the Saviour of the world. 

I believe that the Holy Spirit is ever ready to 
help us along the Way towards Goodness and 
Truth; that prayer is a means of communion be- 
tween man and God; and that it is our privilege 
through faithful service to enter into the Life 
Eternal, the Communion of Saints, and the Peace 
of God. 

Q. 16. What do you mean by the Life Eternal? 

A. I mean that whereas our terrestrial existence 
is temporary, our real existence continues without 
ceasing, in either a higher or a lower form, accord- 
ing to our use of opportunities and means of grace; 
and that the fulness of Life ultimately attainable 
represents a growing perfection at present incon- 
ceivable by us. 



THE CATECHISM 143 

Q. 17. What is the significance of the "Com- 
munion of Saints"? 

A. Higher and holier beings must possess, in 
fuller fruition, those privileges of communion which 
are already foreshadowed by our own faculties of 
language, of sympathy, and of mutual aid; and as 
we find that man's power of friendly help is not 
confined to his fellows, but extends to other ani- 
mals, so may we conceive ourselves part of a 
mighty Fellowship of love and service. 

Q. 18. What do you understand by prayer? 

A. I understand that w T hen our spirits are at- 
tuned to the Spirit of Righteousness, our hopes and 
aspirations exert an influence far beyond their con- 
scious range, and in a true sense bring us into com- 
munion with our Heavenly Father. This power 
of filial communion is called prayer; it is an 
attitude of mingled worship and supplication; we 
offer petitions in a spirit of trust and submission, 
and endeavor to realize the Divine attributes, with 
the help and example of Christ. 

Q. Rehearse the prayer taught us by Jesus. 
A. Our Father, etc. 

Q. 19. Explain the purport of this prayer. 

A. We first attune our spirit to consciousness 
of the Divine Fatherhood; trying to realize His 



144 THE CATECHISM 

infinite holiness as well as His loving-kindness, 
desiring that everything alien to His will should 
cease in our hearts and in the world, and longing 
for the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Then we ask for the supply of the ordinary needs 
of existence, and for the forgiveness of our sins 
and shortcomings just as we pardon those who 
have hurt us. We pray to be kept from evil in- 
fluences, and to be protected when they attack us. 
Finally, we repose in the might, majesty, and 
dominion of the Eternal Goodness. 

Q. 20. What is meant by the Kingdom of 
Heaven ? 

A. The Kingdom of Heaven is the central feat- 
ure of practical Christianity. It represents a har- 
monious condition in which the Divine Will is 
perfectly obeyed; it signifies the highest state of 
existence, both individual and social, which we can 
conceive. Our whole effort should, directly or in- 
directly, make ready its way, — in our hearts, in our 
lives, and in the lives of others. It is the ideal state 
of society towards which Reformers are striving; it 
is the ideal of conscious existence towards which 
Saints aim. 

THE END 



FEB 27 1907 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIOf 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



